STI vs SGS bond yield
Just being curious
One of the common finance wisdom states when the economy is booming, funds shift from bonds to stock market for better returns (surging stock market and rising yields in bond market). During a recession, the opposite occurs where money exits stock market to seek refuge in the bond market, further depressing the meager yields.
Thus I was curious to find out whether this relationship actually holds true over a long run. If so, will there be a relatively reliable yield to serve as an indicator to enter or exit the market? i.e. going into the stock market when bond yields drop below a certain threshold and exiting when yield surge beyond another value? Even before I look further, I already knew things shouldn't be so simple, so its more for fun rather than a serious exercise to change my current investment strategy which already worked well for me.
Anyway, let's see how the graph will look like:
The above graph is made by plotting monthly STI closing value versus monthly average of SGS (Singapore Government Securities) 3 month T-Bills' yield. The STI closing values can be downloaded from yahoo finance while the T-Bills yield can be obtained from SGS website.
Pattern?
If the theory above holds true, the bond yield curve should track the STI index. i.e. when times are good, funds exit bond market to chase higher return in stock market, pushing up stock index and causing bond prices to drop and yields to rise, and vice versa. Looking at the chart, it seems to me this is only somewhat true during 1999 to 2009 and about 1% yield might be the indicator to enter the stock market while 2.5 to 3% yield could signal the exit. However, for both instances, one will either enter or exit the market too early, by as much as 2 years.
While no clear pattern between bonds and stocks seems to occur prior to 1999, what is surprising to me, is the divergent trend after 2009. Though the stock market continue to surge, the bond yield continue to stay severally depressed. This 'abnormally' can be dismissed as the consistent trend mirroring the current global low interest environment brought about by the quantitative easing in USA to stimulate growth and recovery from recent economic recession. It can also imply that with all the hot funds flooding the region from overseas, substantial amount flows to both stocks and bonds. So does that means the there is still much more funds being amassed in the bond market that can be liberated to push the stock market much further into a bubble bigger than the last? Only time can tell. Meanwhile, I doubt I'll be pumping in any more money as most of my businesses are quite favorably acquired at reasonable price. So its more of sit back, relax and accumulate profits and parked them away for the next burst.
Thus I was curious to find out whether this relationship actually holds true over a long run. If so, will there be a relatively reliable yield to serve as an indicator to enter or exit the market? i.e. going into the stock market when bond yields drop below a certain threshold and exiting when yield surge beyond another value? Even before I look further, I already knew things shouldn't be so simple, so its more for fun rather than a serious exercise to change my current investment strategy which already worked well for me.
Chart
Pattern?
If the theory above holds true, the bond yield curve should track the STI index. i.e. when times are good, funds exit bond market to chase higher return in stock market, pushing up stock index and causing bond prices to drop and yields to rise, and vice versa. Looking at the chart, it seems to me this is only somewhat true during 1999 to 2009 and about 1% yield might be the indicator to enter the stock market while 2.5 to 3% yield could signal the exit. However, for both instances, one will either enter or exit the market too early, by as much as 2 years.
While no clear pattern between bonds and stocks seems to occur prior to 1999, what is surprising to me, is the divergent trend after 2009. Though the stock market continue to surge, the bond yield continue to stay severally depressed. This 'abnormally' can be dismissed as the consistent trend mirroring the current global low interest environment brought about by the quantitative easing in USA to stimulate growth and recovery from recent economic recession. It can also imply that with all the hot funds flooding the region from overseas, substantial amount flows to both stocks and bonds. So does that means the there is still much more funds being amassed in the bond market that can be liberated to push the stock market much further into a bubble bigger than the last? Only time can tell. Meanwhile, I doubt I'll be pumping in any more money as most of my businesses are quite favorably acquired at reasonable price. So its more of sit back, relax and accumulate profits and parked them away for the next burst.
Labels: My Thoughts on Investment
posted by Market Uncle at
15:59
5 Comments:
Hi
As interest rates increase together with the economic recovery, yields on bonds will increase as price of bonds get depressed. Bonds might then be more attractive to purchase at a cheap price. The correlation with stock price index do not explain this trend.
comments?
C130spooky
bond yields go up either via increase in borrowing cost, i.e. rising interest rate or weak demand, i.e. lowering bids. The latter should mirror the stock market during economic recovery when investors exit the bond market to chase higher returns when they have the stomach for higher risk.
Hi,
Nice work done there!
Have you also looked at the correlation between STI and US T-Bills, instead of SGS Bond.
I believe, this will be more relevant post 2009, as the cost and source of fund for investor could be coming from US (instead of Singapore) to chase higher yield of the stock, while investor's existing fund could be still park in SGS Bond. Once US Fed pull back the fund, then probably the effect could be felt and the graph could reflect the correct picture.
ps: current cost of fund is still very low and market liquidity is still plenty.
What do you think?
The time to buy high yield bond funds was back in 2008 and 2009 They were yielding over 20% because their was an assumption of a 1930's like depression on the horzion of course that did not happen and the price of high yield bonds skyrocketed.
Do you have any updates on the current correlation between STI and US T-Bills and some bond yields? What is better thing to do? Invest in bonds, or invest in binary options? I came across the topic through optionfair broker review sites www.ouroptionfairreview.com and was able to see how easy you can make a profit? Do you think this is a nice call?
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