Bond Funds Price Change vs. Volatility

Stock volatility versus price change gets a lot of financial media attention, but bonds don’t get so much.

Bonds are an important part of portfolios that deserve investigative attention too.

This article provides data for bond funds of various types in terms of price rate of change (not total return) versus price volatility to help “do-it-yourself” investors with their bond fund decisions.

Fund total return is ultimately more important than price change in theory, but in practice price change tends to strongly drive entry and exit behavior (including stop loss orders on exchange traded funds), which modifies realized total return. That makes examining price change a useful element in the full set of data for a bond fund.

To complement that data, we include a table of fundamental bond fund information, and a table of price change correlation to the aggregate bond index.

Reward-to-Risk Scatter Diagram (1-year):

A plot of the 1-year rate of price change (ended 9/11/2009) versus the 1-year price volatility for 20 types of bond funds plus preferred stocks, shows dramatic performance differences.

Developed markets local currency sovereign debt (BWX) generated the most favorable ratio reward-to-risk (rate-of-change divided by volatility). Not far behind were actively managed global bonds by Loomis Sayles (LSGLX) and US agency backed mortgage securities (MBB).

On the other end of the scale, the most strongly unfavorable reward-to-risk ratio was for junk bonds (JNK), with a negative return and high volatility. Preferred stocks (PFF) had a positive return, but more than ten times the volatility.

Less dramatic, but still unfavorable, were emerging market bonds, both local currency denominated (PLMDX) and US currency denominated (EMB), as well as convertible bonds (VCVSX), inflation protected Treasuries (TIP), long-term Treasuries (TLT) and actively managed unhedged international bonds (PFBDX).

(Click images to enlarge.)

The next two tables, provide the detail supporting this reward-to-risk scatter diagram. They also provide rate of change and volatility for several periods shorter than one year.

Rate of Price Change:

This table itemizes the price change of each fund type over one month, two months, three months, six months, and twelve months through 09/18/2009.

Price Volatility:

This table itemizes the volatility of each fund type over one month, two months, three months, six months, and twelve months through 09/18/2009.

Fundamental Data and Calendar Total Returns:

As you think through what types of bond funds you would like to include in your portfolio, this table (through 09/11/2009) of yields, expenses, duration, credit quality, 3-year total return and standard deviation, and calendar year total returns will be helpful too.

Price Change Correlation to Aggregate Bonds Index:

Finally, this table (through 09/18/2009) shows the correlation of daily price change to the aggregate bond index for one month, two months, three months, six months, and twelve months.

Collectively, data in this article may be helpful to you as a “do-it-yourself” investor when composing the bond portion of your portfolio.

Don’t forget to read the prospectus and to study the detailed holdings of each fund before investing.

Also, once you narrow your choice of funds, build a correlation matrix to make sure you are getting helpful correlation differences between and amongst the funds and the other non-bond assets under consideration.

Disclosure: We hold several of the named securities in various portfolios.

Comments

[Mad Hedge F...:]

bvc A number of readers have asked me to come up with a safe, high yielding investment in which to hide out in case the equity markets swoon again. That means they are looking for a security that offers a high fixed return, denominated in a strong currency that will benefit from future upgrades that will boost the principal over time. All of that is another name for the Invesco PowerShares Emerging Market Sovereign Debt ETF (PCY). The fund has 40% of its assets in bonds issued in Latin America and 31% in Asia, with the bulk of the maturities exceeding ten years. The two year old fund now boasts $340 million in market cap and pays a handy 6.42% dividend. This beats the daylights out of the nine basis points you currently earn for cash, the 3.40% yield on 10 year Treasuries, and still exceeds the 6.42% dividend on the iShares Investment Grade Bond ETN (LQD), which buys predominantly single “A” US corporates. The big difference here is that foreign bonds are issued in strong foreign currencies instead of weak dollars, and have a rosy future of further credit upgrades to look forward to. It turns out that many emerging markets have little or no debt because until recently, investors thought their credit quality was too poor. No doubt a history of defaults in Brazil and Argentina in the seventies and eighties is at the back of their minds. With US government bond issuance going through the roof, the shoe is now on the other foot. A price appreciation of 125% over the past year tells you this is not exactly an undiscovered concept. Still, it is something to keep on your “buy on dips” list.

Sep 22 02:49 PM

[Paul Harper:]

with Latin American countries gaining upgrades & becoming more stable, I expect the uptrend to continue, am a particular fan of EMB, good solid ETF with a 5.9% div.

Sep 25 04:44 AM