Bond investors give home bias and Robert Kuok the thumbs up

AS 2018 draws to a close, the local bond market isn't doing too badly, all things considered.

With two weeks left to end-2018, the Markit SGD corporates' total-return index is down a mere 0.16 per cent from the all-time high of 124.98 reached on January 16. The index has recovered quite a bit from the year low of 122.97 on June 11.

Bonds globally have staged a rebound since early November and the yield of the US 10-year Treasury has fallen to close to 2.88 per cent from 3.23 per cent in Nov 8 as markets now expect less aggressive interest rate hikes next year.

Bond prices move up, yields fall and vice versa. Bonds also perform better when interest rates are low.

Delving further into the Singapore dollar bond space, generally those sold by statutory boards and government linked issuers have done better despite their longer t…