Fund buyers have urged investors not to rely on fixed income assets if they want to protect portfolios from the next sell-off in markets, highlighting "the characteristics of bonds have changed" as the era of quantitative easing (QE) comes to an end.
Over the past three decades, bond yields have been on a downward trend, with 10-year Treasury yields falling from highs of 16% in the 1980s to trade around 2.95% in 2018. Despite this fall in yields, investors continue to pile into fixed income products in a move to diversify their portfolios and protect against an equity pullback following the S&P 500's record-breaking bull run and amid concerns over the impact of US President Donald Trump's trade war rhetoric on global markets. The latest Investment Association (IA) figures show fixed income was the second best-selling asset class i...
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