While we have issued our own warning about bond risks, the semi-official list of Bond Haters continues to grow:
Bill Gross – “Most short to intermediate Treasury yields, however, are dangerously close to the zero-bound which imply little if any room to fall: no margin, no air underneath those bond yields and therefore limited, if any, price appreciation.”
Warren Buffett – “They are among the most dangerous of assets”
Jeremy Grantham – “We are literally running out of superlatives to describe how much we hate bonds,” GMO says. “Yields are pitiful, dangers of even a slight recovery that could wreak havoc for long-duration portfolios loom, and monetary policies globally certainly have added to the specter of rising yields.”
Larry Fink, Blackrock – “Investors who seek the safety of treasury bonds will have minimal returns and will not be able to meet their needs with the U.S. Federal Reserve expected to keep interest rates low, said Fink, who in 1988 co-founded the New York-based manager with $3.5 trillion of assets. By contrast, equities are trading at the lowest valuations in 20 or 30 years.”
For balance, here is the counterpoint to the Bond Bears:
“This recovery has not been a great recovery with regard to income gains, and income gains are a function of both growth in wages and jobs,” Jeffrey Rosenberg, the chief investment strategist for fixed-income at BlackRock Inc., the world’s biggest money manager, said in a Feb. 1 interview in New York. “Why can’t you pass price increases through to consumers? It’s because consumers aren’t seeing income gains.”
Read the full article here.
