Horrific YTD performance for global high quality bonds

The Bloomberg Global Agg. Bond index, which is composed of corporate and government bonds, experienced with a decline of -11.6% year-to-date by far the worst performance on record! 

The chart below shows the individual calendar year returns of the index since 1992 and illustrates the unprecedented sell-off in high quality bonds in 2022 caused by the sharp increase in interest rates. The index has an average duration of around 7 years and hence, the boost in rates was felt heavily by this widely used reference index.