Historical lows. This year, they’ve besieged the Bloomberg Global Aggerate and Bloomberg U.S. Treasury indexes, according to etftrends.com.

As they put high risk assets in the market, investors are second guessing the role of fixed income in their portfolios. That’s where active managed funds can provide a boost.

Fixed income might not exactly be in the driver’s seat now, but when it comes to the bond market, investors can’t simply look the other way. Why not? Well, it’s not just the world’s largest securities market – and by a considerable margin – it’s also rode the wave of significant growth. And that’s both in terms of size and the number of issuers.

“Navigating the bond market is even more challenging for advisors this year as bonds fall in value,” said Todd Rosenbluth, head of Research at VettaFi. “However, the ability to tap into the expertise of experienced managers along with the liquidity benefits of an ETF has been compelling.”

Meantime, face it: many investors aren’t accustomed to the volatility and price drops prompted by dramatically growing interest rates this year, according to advisorscapital.com.

The upside? Yields on fixed income securities have really made out better than they have in years.