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Portfolio Protection: A Renaissance for Government Bonds

Following a substantial correction in recent years, the relatively generous yields currently available means that high-quality sovereign bonds now have a much greater capacity to provide protection for equity investors. However, multi-asset investors may need to take on more duration to achieve a fully-fledged and meaningful degree of protection. Cash and longer-dated government bonds offer an interesting barbell approach in this regard.

Senior Investment Strategist

For a long time, the considered wisdom prevailed that a 60/40 investment portfolio of equities and bonds could satisfy the needs of most investors, balancing growth assets with the more defensive qualities of government bonds. However, the deep and simultaneous corrections in bonds and equities in 2022 led many to rethink the 60/40 approach amid an excessive focus on rising bond-equity correlations.

Today’s relatively generous yields mean that sovereign bonds now represent a very different proposition to a few years ago; their capacity to provide meaningful protection for equity investors should be much greater. Just how effective that protection could be hinges on how markets price the risks of inflation and a possible growth shock.

So, despite a likely bond renaissance it still makes sense for investors to keep other diversifiers on their radars and expand the range of assets that can act as “safe havens” in their portfolios to include the likes of cash, gold and selected currencies.

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