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Bonds: Valuation
Buy when the coloured
lines are at the low end of their range, sell when they are high
This tool is intended to
show the attractiveness of long-term bonds in real terms after allowing for inflation. It
is designed not only to show the current position but also to provide a best guess as to
the future trend. This is useful for spotting extremes of over- or under-valuation. It
does so by measuring the real yield on bonds after inflation, in those countries where
there is an active ten-year government bond market. For comparability, government bonds
indexes have been rebased to set year-end 1994 at 100.
In each chart the bond price
index is shown as the thick
white line on the right hand
axis. The main explanatory variable, the real yield, shown as the thin yellow line, uses the left hand axis. A Best Guess as to
the future development of the valuation ratio is also shown on the left hand axis, as the orange line.
Best Guesses suggest what
would happen to the valuation ratio based on forecasts for bond yields and inflation,
assuming constant bond prices. The base level is the average for the last completed
calendar year. Forecasts are consensus estimates.
An extreme of overvaluation
does not necessarily indicate that negative returns are to be expected because returns
also include the accumulation of interest earned. Furthermore valuation extremes can be
worked off either by a change in bond prices or by a change in inflation.
Owing to the conversion of
legacy currencies into Euros, analysis is provided on a common bond market denominated in
Euros, rather than for individual countries. Historical data is provided by creating
synthetic GDP-weighted time-series for the component currencies, expressed in the European
Currency Unit.
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