What the bond rout means for your finances (Hint: It’s a mixed bag)

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Rising bond yields have been causing plenty of consternation among fiscal hawks and investors, with good reason.

Higher bond yields make it more expensive for governments, companies and in some cases consumers to borrow. And they’ve been rising amid growing concerns over inflation and other economic and geopolitical issues .

So, yeah. It’s not great.

But also … not necessarily terrible for your money in all instances.

For example, if you have savings to invest? Higher bond yields are “unequivocally good news,” said Collin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

Here’s a look at how today’s bond yields may affect your money in six different situations.

When bond yields rise, their prices fall. And price-wise, longer-term bonds (like the 30-year Treasury) have taken the biggest hits.

So if you have to sell a bond before it reaches maturity you’ll probably get less than you paid for it plus you’ll be giving up the future income that bond promises to pay out.

But if you’re planning to hold your bond to maturity, any decline in price isn’t a concern. Nothing changes for you because you will continue to get paid the interest you were promised at the start.

And if you’re thinking of selling just to get a better yield elsewhere, you’ll have to do the math to see if it pays off.

Say you bought a 2-year Treasury bill at 3.4% at the end of February, Martin said. You have about 18 months left to maturity. But today you could get another 18-month bill for 4.3%. However, you’d lose some principal if you were to sell your current 2-year back into the market. And the extra yield you’d gain by buying a new 18-month bill at 4.3% likely wouldn’t compensate you enough to make the switch worth it.

“Net/net, you’re looking at a pretty similar return if you were to sell at a lower price and invest in the new, higher-yielding security,” Martin said.

But if you can afford to reinvest your money for another two years, you might do better buying a new 2-year bill at 4.4%. “If you consider slightly longer maturities (than what you own now), that’s where you can see the value. The longer you invest, the more the extra income you earn can offset that price decline,” he explained.

See: “Unequivocal good news” above.

Prices have fallen and you’re getting to lock in a high yield for your money for the duration of the bond.

“It’s almost as if the bonds have gone on sale,” said Dominic Pappalardo, chief multi-asset strategist at Morningstar Wealth.

Shorter-term Treasuries are a good place to earn a very solid, low-risk return on money you’ll need for a near- or intermediate-term expenses (e.g., buying a home, college costs, etc.)

Or, if you have a financial plan and know what your end goal is, you may be able to “de-risk” your portfolio a bit (by putting more in bonds, less in stocks) if doing so would still let you meet your goal with less risk, Martin suggested.

When you set up a bond ladder for a period of time – say, five years – you purchase bonds of different durations within that time frame. Every time a bond on your ladder matures, you take the proceeds and invest it in a new one. So you’ll get to take advantage of today’s higher yields and lower prices when your next bond matures.

The benefit of setting up a bond ladder is that “you’re taking the guesswork out of investing,” Martin said. “It eliminates the need to time the market.”

How today’s high yields affect you depends on the types of bonds your fund invests in.

“A fund that has longer-dated bonds will experience a bigger price decline,” Pappalardo said. “The length of time to maturity is what dictates how much the price moves.”

Prices on shorter-term bonds are less volatile in the face of changing yields, he explained.

But if you’re invested for the long term, fund managers will have to rebalance the portfolio as bonds come due so may be able to invest in lower-priced, higher-yield paper.

Even if you don’t have much bond exposure, there could come a point where stocks take a hit.

“Usually, higher yields are not great for stocks, but lately it hasn’t mattered much. But historically higher rates tend to have a negative impact on stocks. Be cognizant of that,” Martin said.

Even if they do, if you’re investing in certain stocks or stock funds for the long run, and you’re dollar-cost-averaging (i.e., you invest a fixed amount every month), you can benefit when stocks take a hit because you’re buying shares at a cheaper price.

Okay, so, the ‘mixed bag’ story ends here.

Neither Martin nor Pappalardo think bond yields will come down from where they are in the near term.

That’s not great news if you’re in the market for a mortgage or auto loan, which are affected by bond yield movements, especially on the 10-year Treasury , among other things.

“The outlook is not great for mortgage rates and long-term borrowing costs. I expect yields to stay elevated,” Martin said. And he’s not seeing much relief ahead on auto loan rates, either.

And should the Federal Reserve raise its overnight lending rate to banks this year? Pappalardo said he would expect mortgage rates to rise even further.

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债券收益率上升引起了财政鹰派和投资者的诸多担忧，这并非没有道理。

债券收益率上升使得政府、企业以及在某些情况下消费者的借贷成本更高。而随着人们对通胀以及其他经济和地缘政治问题的担忧日益加剧，债券收益率一直在攀升。

是的，情况不太好。

但同时……也并非在所有情况下都绝对不划算。

例如，如果你有积蓄可以投资？施瓦布金融研究中心固定收益研究和策略主管科林·马丁表示，更高的债券收益率“无疑是好消息”。

下面我们来看看在六种不同情况下，今天的债券收益率可能会如何影响你的资金。

债券收益率上升时，其价格下跌。而从价格上看，长期债券（例如30年期美国国债）受到的冲击最大。

因此，如果你在债券到期前出售它，你得到的金额可能比你支付的金额要少，而且你还会放弃该债券承诺的未来收益。

但如果您计划持有债券至到期，价格下跌就无需担心。对您而言，一切照旧，因为您仍将按期获得承诺的利息。

如果你只是想通过出售来获得更高的收益，那么你必须计算一下这样做是否划算。

马丁说，假设你在二月底以3.4%的利率购买了一张两年期国库券，距离到期还有大约18个月。但今天你可以以4.3%的利率购买另一张18个月期国库券。然而，如果你把这张两年期国库券卖回市场，你会损失一部分本金。而且，以4.3%的利率购买新的18个月期国库券所获得的额外收益可能不足以弥补你为此付出的代价。

“总的来说，如果你以较低的价格卖出并投资于新的、收益更高的证券，你的回报将非常相似，”马丁说。

但如果你能承受将资金再投资两年，那么购买利率为4.4%的两年期国债或许会更划算。“如果你考虑期限稍长一些的债券（比你现在持有的债券期限更长），就能看到它的价值所在。投资期限越长，获得的额外收益就越能抵消价格下跌的影响，”他解释道。

参见上文“毋庸置疑的好消息”。

价格下跌，你可以在债券期限内锁定高收益。

“这些债券就好像在打折出售一样，”晨星财富首席多元资产策略师多米尼克·帕帕拉尔多表示。

短期国债是获取稳定、低风险收益的好选择，适合用于近期或中期支出（例如购房、子女教育费用等）。

马丁建议，或者，如果你有财务计划并且知道你的最终目标是什么，你可以稍微“降低”你的投资组合的风险（通过增加债券投资，减少股票投资），如果这样做仍然可以让你以较低的风险实现你的目标。

当你构建一个债券阶梯投资组合，设定一个期限（比如五年）时，你会在该期限内购买不同期限的债券。每当阶梯中的一只债券到期时，你就可以用所得资金投资于新的债券。这样，当你的下一只债券到期时，你就能享受到当前更高的收益率和更低的价格。

马丁表示，构建债券阶梯的好处在于“它消除了投资中的猜测成分”，“它省去了择时交易的需要”。

如今的高收益率对你的影响取决于你的基金投资的是哪种类型的债券。

帕帕拉尔多表示：“持有期限较长债券的基金价格跌幅会更大。债券的到期时间长短决定了价格波动的幅度。”

他解释说，短期债券的价格受收益率变化的影响较小。

但如果你进行的是长期投资，基金经理会在债券到期时重新平衡投资组合，因此可能会投资于价格更低、收益更高的债券。

即使你债券投资不多，股市也可能出现下跌。

“通常来说，收益率上升对股市不利，但最近情况似乎并不严重。不过，从历史数据来看，利率上升往往会对股市产生负面影响。这一点需要注意。”马丁说道。

即使股市下跌，如果你长期投资某些股票或股票基金，并且采用美元成本平均法（即每月投资固定金额），那么当股市下跌时，你也能从中受益，因为你是以更低的价格买入股票。

好了，所以这个“喜忧参半”的故事到此结束。

马丁和帕帕拉尔多都认为，短期内债券收益率不会从目前的水平下降。

如果你正在考虑申请抵押贷款或汽车贷款，这可不是什么好消息，因为这些贷款会受到债券收益率波动的影响，尤其是 10 年期国债收益率的波动。

马丁表示：“抵押贷款利率和长期借贷成本的前景并不乐观。我预计收益率将维持在高位。” 他还指出，汽车贷款利率短期内也难以缓解。

那么，美联储今年是否应该提高对银行的隔夜贷款利率呢？帕帕拉尔多表示，他预计抵押贷款利率还会进一步上涨。