Pretty good year for corporate bonds

In retrospect 2005 was a pretty good year for the corporate bond market, with the investment grade m...

In retrospect 2005 was a pretty good year for the corporate bond market, with the investment grade market returning 8.7% against 7.9% for UK gilts, outperforming by 0.8%. The temptation is to think that 2005 was a fairly dull, standard year. Interestingly, with the advent of the numerous broker surveys doing the rounds in the market we have a fairly clear indication that most market participants have been and remain nervous of the market and are underweight overall. So what's the problem? Global growth appears quite healthy, inflation is subdued, default rates are very low and every pen...