Big investors are wading back into the bond market after this year’s historic sell-off, with fund managers favouring debt relative to other asset classes for the first time since the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
A broad gauge of fixed-income assets across the globe has lost 15 per cent this year as high inflation spurred interest rate rises in developed economies, by far the weakest performance in data stretching back to 1990.
The resulting rise in yields is drawing in buyers who argue that bonds have not looked so attractive for years. The yield on the Bloomberg global aggregate index climbed as far as 4 per cent in October, up from 1.3 per cent at the start of the year and the highest level since 2008.