Are fixed income fears unfounded?

As interest rates rise, so too do investors’ concerns about the performance of fixed income.

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“An allocation to fixed income is considered a safe way to preserve capital and provide diversification against equity investments,” says Vjosana Klosi, director of portfolio construction at CIBC, and author of a December 2017 research paper on fixed income and rising rates.

“However, in the current period of rising rates and expected inflation, performance of fixed income is negatively impacted.”

Read: How to project fixed income returns

Equities, too, won’t get off scot-free. “When we have a combination of rising rates and slow growth levels, the impact is negative to both equities and fixed income,” says Klosi, and that results in performance correlation.

Both asset classes react negatively to rising rates because subdued growth doesn’t offset the negative impact of rising borrowing costs and the removal of liquidity in the market. Klosi’s report illustrates the positive correlation between equities and fixed income in such an environment by reproducing data from the rising-rate environments of the early 1980s and 1990s: during those decades, there was correlation of between +30% and +60% in both Canada and the U.S.

Read: The search for uncorrelated assets

As interest rates rise, finding balance through a traditional 60/40 split, or a similar approach, is harder to achieve. The positive correlation between fixed income and equities “indicates that maintaining debt and equity allocations had reduced diversification benefits during those periods,” says Klosi in the report.

Still, if investors forgo fixed income due to this challenge, they could miss out on the benefits.

Read:

Why fixed income fits the bill

First, fixed income can still provide downside protection.

“This is due to the less-than-perfect correlation between equities and debt,” says Klosi. For example, during the past three financial crises since 1975, equity performance ranged between about -30% (September 1987 to November 1987) to as low as about -53% (November 2007 to February 2009).

“During the same period, government bonds have had positive returns in all three scenarios,” she says. For example, Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index performance was 2.3% and 11.8% during the above two crises.

Read: Tackling tough markets

Second, in rising-rate environments, fixed-income losses are substantially less than equity losses during times of crisis. For the former, losses “range typically in the negative single digits, and they’ve even been positive in a couple of scenarios of rising rates,” says Klosi.

Finally, the recovery of fixed income is relatively short. “It takes approximately two to three months,” says Klosi. “For equities, […] recovery will take as long as five years.”

Read: Should you stay benchmarked to the market?

Think about the long term

Another thing to consider is rising interest rates partially offset fixed income’s declining price levels—coupons and maturing principal can be reinvested at higher rates.

If you’re a long-term investor, this means “the overall proceeds at maturity from the reinvestment of your coupons will be higher in a rising-rate [environment] than in a stable or a declining-rate environment,” says Klosi.

Further, the pace of rising rates is expected to be gradual. Historically, during periods where rates increase slowly, “the negative impact to fixed income is very subdued and moderate,” she adds.

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Between 2004 and 2006, gradual rate increases actually resulted in positive performance for all fixed income asset classes. Also, Klosi notes the U.S. Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee has set the long-term projection for its federal funds rate at 2.8%, which is considerably lower than historical targets of 4%.

It’s also “definitely lower than what we’ve seen in the past during a rising rate period, where rates have been as high as 20%,” says Klosi.

Also read:

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Get ready for more volatility

When to keep and let go of investments

This article is part of the AdvisorToGo program, powered by CIBC. It was written without input from the sponsor.