How to find different yield sources for clients
- To understand why yield is hard to find.
- To ascertain which asset classes are providing yield.
- To understand how yield and risk work for investors.
- To understand why yield is hard to find.
- To ascertain which asset classes are providing yield.
- To understand how yield and risk work for investors.
Given the paucity of yield from the government, investors may need to keep looking further up the risk curve to find yield from fixed income.
UK corporate bonds
Investors put off government bonds thanks to rounds of quantitative easing in developed economies, and the consequent low yields, have been heading to the perceived safety of corporate bonds over recent years.
This is perhaps in the hope of a greater-than-gilts return, for a commensurately higher amount of risk - but over the past year, this has also proved to be a false hope for many of those remaining invested in the UK corporate bond market.
In August last year, the round of fiscal manipulation implemented by the Bank of England saw the average sterling-based UK corporate bond yield drop to 2.25 per cent - higher than gilts, yes, but not high enough to compensate for the price paid for the narrow spread.
Sterling corporate bond yields 2014 to 2017 (Source: FT.com)
That said, investors who have sought out UK corporate fixed income funds over the past few years will have seen the average performance of the fund outshine the total returns they have been getting on cash or government bond funds, and for relatively low risk compared with UK equities.
According to data from the Investment Association, the average UK corporate bond fund has returned 9.4 per cent over the past year, 20.2 per cent over the past three years and 39.3 per cent over the past five years - net income reinvested. (Data according to FE Analytics, as at 26 May).
Even with the shock for sterling after the UK's vote to leave the European Union, making sterling-denominated assets more expensive for UK based investors, it is understandable that investors will have wanted to move up the risk curve from cash to gilts to corporate bonds to get a better capital return and a slightly better yield.
Going slightly up the risk spectrum - into BBB and BB rated fixed income - could be one way to generate extra yield.
Chris Iggo, chief investment officer of fixed income at AXA Investment Managers, says he finds opportunities in "high yield and financial corporates".
That said, investors just sticking to the UK are not diversified enough: there are other fixed income opportunities to be found.
Going global
Some investors continue to believe that UK firms generating the majority of their profits overseas represent the best option for income.
However, Sebastien Jory, strategist at Liberum Capital, is expecting an uncertain outlook for the UK economy, which he said may affect domestic companies.
