Showing posts with label Sovereign Bonds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sovereign Bonds. Show all posts

Saturday 4 May 2013

Has a bubble really built up in bonds - and how can expats protect themselves?


The Bond market has never looked more bubbly - the iShares Barclays Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG) generated a cumulative total return of more than 23% since the end of 2008. Commodities guru Jim Rogers has tried, at least twice that I know of,  to short bonds (and lost each time). In the men time, sovereign bond yields continue to go lower, the 10-year US Treasury bond yielding around 1.7%, Germany's 10-year yielding around 1.3% and Japan's about 0.6%. In Europe inflation for April fell to 1.4% (per Eurostat) further keeping bond yields low and inflating the bond bubble further. Bill Gross of PIMCO, in his latest newsletter has advised his investors "to continue to participate in an obviously central-bank-generated bubble but to gradually reduce risk positions in 2013 and perhaps beyond" - which is quite possibly the best advice you can use today. My only additional comment would be to reduce risk positions - not gradually as Bill suggests but to do it as quickly as possible. A well structured offshore bond will be the best vehicle to do this.