Winship's four big fears for bond markets

BlackRock's head of sterling bond portfolios, Ian Winship, has identified four main areas of concern for fixed income investors this year, and revealed ways they can negate the impact of any downturn.

Last year bonds were sent reeling by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, after he announced plans to begin tapering the US’ quantitative easing programme. The move to taper caused a min-meltdown in markets, with equities and bonds selling-off as investors panicked over the impact of any change in the stimulus being pumped into markets. While bonds have enjoyed a better start to 2014 as equities were hit by emerging market woes, prompting a switch out of risk assets and into core government bonds, the outlook remains clouded for fixed income investors with rate hikes dra...