By: Lawrence Gillum, CFA, Chief Fixed Income Strategist, LPL Financial

Fixed income investors have had a rough time over the last few years. Normally a staid asset class, core bonds (as proxied by the Bloomberg Aggregate Bond Index) have seen negative returns over the last two calendar years and could potentially see negative returns for a third straight year—something that has never happened in the history of the core bond index (since 1975). But, despite the rapid rise in interest rates (fall in bond prices), there’s no reason to believe that we are in the beginning of a sustained bear market. Just because yields fell for many years doesn’t mean that they have to keep rising. In fact, at current levels, after years of artificially suppressed levels, long-term yields are back within longer-term ranges. And with inflation trending in the right direction and the Federal Reserve (Fed) near (at?) the end of its rate hiking campaign, we think the big move in long-term rates has already happened and interest rates are finally back to normal.

Read the full commentary here: weekly-market-commentary-09052023