The Trouble with Treasuries

It’s been a challenging few years for Long-Term Treasury Bonds, which are defined as bonds that have maturities of 20+ years and are noted in orange on today's Chart of the Day. Since 2020, they have lost 42% of their value, erasing all the accumulated value for the last six years.

You may recall the theory that on a long enough timeline, many investments will have a similar risk adjusted return. In the short term, the green line highlights this idea. It is our largest bond holding, which consists of 0-5 Year Corporate Bonds. Over the same time period, it produced a slightly higher return with less volatility.

Then again, we don’t know how this match-up will end up since we’ll have to wait another 20+ years to see the outcome, since that is how long it will be before the last of the Long-Term Treasury Bonds mature.