M&G's Tomlins: How to guard against high yield volatility

ON BONDS

There continues to be value in high yield bonds which offer attractive levels of income, especially following the recent market sell-off.

I said at the start of the year that the asset class would be unlikely to repeat the exceptionally strong gains it delivered in 2012 and that the bulk of this year’s returns would come through income. For these reasons, I think that valuations had become slightly stretched in the early part of 2013. The sell-off in June can be viewed as a healthy correction that has brought valuations more in line with their fundamentals. In the current low interest rate environment, high yield is one of the few asset classes producing an income ahead of inflation. Until interest rates begin to rise m...