How To Get Great Performance Out of Bond Funds

By: Christopher Fitch

Investment management has become an all-important component to investing, particularly after the past 3 years since the collapse of the US credit system. A lot of investors have taken a good, hard look at their asset allocation model and determined that their risk tolerance might be a lot lower than they might have originally believed.

Since the market caused many sleepless nights and self-doubt, the topic of risk tolerance has resurfaced, forcing both aggressive investors and conservative savers to realize that their traditional savings and wealth-building vehicles needed to change. For the conservative investor, that came with the realization that term deposits and treasuries could not be relied upon to maintain anything more than the rate of inflation.

For the aggressive investor, the implications were probably more grave. It meant proper diversification needed to take center stage. That meant finding opportunities in the income class, a class that might have been ignore completely in the past.

The income class of a decade ago is not the same as the class today. In fact, today's bond funds have explore greater options for income and capital appreciation than their historic counterparts. High yield investments combined with greater-volatility debt means some of these bonds respond to market triggers the way some equities do.

When you really get to know these high yield investments, it becomes clear that they not only provide greater volatility than some equity funds, they pay greater income and offer just as much growth potential. Meanwhile, they achieve these benefits while taking on much less risk.

In taking a look at both bond and equity funds, the lower real risk will always be with the bond funds. Where there has been a problem is in the rating companies like Moody's and Standard & Poor's, both of which came under scrutiny during the CDO collapse of 2007 and 2008. What was once an investment-grade bond two years ago is now a B rated and with the spread between government and corporate having widened over the years, only the investor stands to benefit.

Some of the best bond funds will generate returns far greater than conservative equity funds. Expenses are low because trading is lower. Overall, bond funds can provide better returns than equity funds, with less risk. They are clearly worth considering.

Article Source: http://yourfinance.co.za