Strategists for Goldman Sachs, Christian Mueller Glissmann and Peter Openhiemer, say that government bonds are failing to meet the traditional hedging requirements and to consider higher cash and equity allocations. There is still a small negative equity/bond correlation and investors shouldn’t leave the traditional 60/40 split immediately. There are other reasons to allocate more to equity though such as a higher equity risk premia. Inflation is eating away very low yields, making cash a better relative investment, and rate volatility could be even higher in the upcoming Fed cycle. If bonds/equity correlation moves to zero then a balanced portfolio is futile and cash is the safer option.

FINSUM: Investors should need to watch the real return on their fixed income investments and high yield debt might not be worth the risk to generate the ‘normal’ bond returns.