LITMIR.BIZ

      At launch, bonds are sold to investors (typically institutional) via an investment bank or broker. This is known as the primary market. Gilt issues are also offered directly to the general public. After this primary phase, bonds are then free to trade between investors and/or market counterparties. However, unlike equities that trade through a centralised stock exchange, bonds generally trade on a peer-to-peer basis from one institution (such as an investment bank) to another (such as broker).

      This global market in bonds is enormous. Figures released by the International Monetary Authority in 2002 estimated the total amount of debt securities as around 43 trillion US Dollars. At the time this was nearly twice the total of the world’s stock market capitalisation. The number of bonds in circulation is considerable, and a large and regular issuer such as the European Investment Bank or General Electric may have several hundred issues trading at any one time. These bonds will be issued in a variety of currencies and may differ greatly from each other in terms of coupon or coupon type, date of maturity and other features such as imbedded puts and calls.

      This book is primarily concerned with the sterling bond market, and even in this relatively small subset of the international bond markets, a quick check on my Bloomberg Terminal reveals over 6,000 issues outstanding. Bear in mind that this number is constantly changing (bonds are issued and redeemed all the time).

      Although the bond market is considerable in size, one point to bear in mind is that the secondary market is less consistent than that seen in equities. Many bonds are bought on a buy and hold basis as new issues, and this investor behaviour has a tendency to reduce secondary market turnover. Government bonds remain highly tradable with very tight bid-offer spreads for large size deals. However, the liquidity situation in corporate bonds is variable with only a proportion of the huge number of new issues that are readily tradable in the secondary market or accessible at any given time. The skills required to deal with this variable liquidity picture make bond dealing a slightly more complex art compared to the highly transparent equity market, and I address this issue over the course of the book.

      Chapter 2: Why buy bonds? The risks and rewards of investing in bonds

      The last four decades have seen the emergence, growth and eventually the almost total domination of equity investing. Prior to this, pension funds had invested mainly in bonds, the view being that fixed income securities were a logical and safe home for the money. All this was to change in the 1950s, in a move largely credited to the then fund manager of Imperial Tobacco, George Ross Goobey. Mr Goobey, an actuary by profession, reached the conclusion that equities were undervalued and started switching the fund into the then unfashionable stock market.

      He was right. Over the coming decades, inflation destroyed the real return from fixed income securities and equities proved the place to be. This view, sometimes known as the “cult of the equity” is now almost a universal belief with equities widely considered to be the first choice for investment.

       But is this the whole story?

      When an investment approach is almost universally adopted, it’s often time to worry. Certainly, the bear market in the early 2000s eroded the longer-term outperformance of stocks against bonds; undermining the theory that bonds are simply an antiquated asset class, suitable for only the most unadventurous or complacent investors.

      At the time of publication of this book, the argument for equities looks somewhat weaker than usual. The highly respected 2011 Barclays Equity-Gilt study (now in its 56^th year of publication) shows that UK Government bonds have outperformed equities over a ten year period and are virtually level-pegging over a twenty-year period.

      The figures shown below are “annual real returns” (i.e. inflation adjusted). Income is assumed to be re-invested.

      Table 2.1: comparative performance of UK equities and gilts