Among this year’s most popular fixed income exchange traded funds are low and ultra-short duration fare, but a new survey indicates investors are revisiting bonds with longer-dated maturities.
“Bond investors are the most bullish on longer-dated Treasuries in two years as worries about slowing global growth and losses on Wall Street have spurred safe-haven demand for U.S. government debt, a J.P. Morgan survey showed on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
Even with that new sentiment, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ: TLT) has suffered fourth-quarter outflows of $2.29 billion while the fourth quarter’s top asset-gathering bond ETFs are low duration funds. TLT, which tracks the ICE U.S. Treasury 20+ Year Bond Index, has an effective duration of almost 17.1 years.
Since 2016, the Federal Reserve has hiked rates seven times and if Goldman Sachs’ forecast of five more rate hikes to come is correct, fixed-income investors may continue favoring short-term debt. The Fed is widely expected to raise rates for the fourth time this year in December.
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The Long And Short Of It
“A quarter of investors surveyed said they were long on U.S. government bonds, up from 21 percent last week,” according to Reuters. “The share of investors who said they were short Treasuries fell to 21 percent from 23 percent a week ago.”