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Aug 27

Bond Fund Correlations

The above chart shows the 6 month daily correlation between Hedged Global Shares and four Australian bond funds…

  • Tyndall Australian Bond
  • UBS International Bond
  • Macquarie Diversified Fixed Interest
  • Principal Global Strategic Income Fund

Each fund is different. Tyndall is invested in high grade Australian bonds, UBS International in high grade global bonds, Macquarie is 60% Australian bonds, 40% global and also takes on some investment grade credit risks, and Principal’s fund invests in high yielding securities including hybrids, asset backed securities, junk bonds, as well as some conservative bonds. All global exposures are hedged to Australian dollars.

What this chart demonstrates is the increasing correlation between Principal and hedged international shares from mid 2007, the start of the credit crunch. Basically, diversification benefits did not really exist for the high yielding investment.

However for the other funds, which had conservative bonds as a high proportion, their low correlation with hedge international shares shows their diverisifcation benefits in tact.

So a simple conclusion is…whilst high yielding investment may giove you the opportunity for higher returns, don’t think they will provide diversification benefits if sharemarkets tank. With a weak outlook for shares, so too is the outlook for companies to pay their debt so the price of low-grade credit can fall significantly also. A final point, which is often overlooked…bonds have limited upside…at maturity the most you will ever receive is the face value…that’s it.

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