The Ministry of Finance Japan very generously provides data on JGBs back to 1974.  Here is a quick example how to pull it into R and then graph it. From TimelyPortfolio R code in GIST (do raw for copy/paste):

When I ask the question “What if the US 10 year goes to 0?", most do not know the effect, the catalyst, or if 0 has ever happened before.  The math is fairly simple to do in Excel or with an old-school calculator, but let’s use RQuantLib to do...

Mebane Faber’s post Buffett’s Alpha points out Warren Buffett’s 0.76 Sharpe Ratio discussed in the similarly title paper Buffet’s Alpha.  I of course immediately think about the 8th Wonder of the World – the US Bond Market, whose Sharpe ...

US investors were spoiled by US Treasuries which acted as a near perfect hedge to stocks during the 2008-2009 crisis.  However, in real crisis, bonds rarely offer any comfort, and asset allocation fails (see post Death Spiral of a Country and IMF ...

As the researchpuzzler highlights in “a bad bet”, US bonds were a popular subject at the CFA Institute Annual Conference.  While US Bonds have been in an amazing 30 year run (see previous posts Lattice Explore Bonds, Bond Market as a Casino Ga...

I did a very basic experiment in Efficient Frontier of Buy-Hold and Tactical System where I determined the efficient frontier of the S&P 500 with itself transformed by a Mebane Faber 10-month moving average tactical allocation. The result was inter...

Most of the discussion trying to determine if the U.S. is Japan 20 years later focuses on the economy and the stock market.  However, one of the biggest and most persistent correlations between Japan and the U.S. are the Japanese Yen and the U.S. ...

In Extreme Bond Returns, I did not consider the context of extreme bond returns, so let’s examine annual returns for the Dow Jones Industrial Average when bonds experience extreme annual returns.  I was very surprised that stocks performed extre...

In Real Squeeze, -1% Guaranteed Real Real Return! Yummy??, and Historical Sources of Bond Returns, I offer some historical perspective on the only sources of bond returns: inflation, real returns, and credit.  Assuming no credit risk in US Treasur...

20 years of data is nowhere near enough to satisfy my insatiable appetite for bigger datasets.  While I showed Record Long Term Treasury Returns with Vanguard’s US Long Treasury mutual fund, its 20 year life is not sufficient to give me comfort ...

I mistakenly assume everyone knows that US Treasury Returns have been extreme in 2011.  As we near the end of the year, I thought it would be beneficial to look at the world’s best performer while incorporating some new graphical techniques.&nbs...

Since my fifth most popular post has been Bond Market as a Casino Game Part 1, I thought I would use Vanguard Total US Bond Market mutual fund (VBMFX) monthly returns to build our skills in the lattice R package and help visualize the unbelievable run ...

In a follow up to Evolving Domestic Frontier, I wanted to explore the efficient frontier including international indexes since 1980.  Life is great when your primary indexes (Barclays Aggregate and S&P 500) lie on the frontier as they did 1980...

When we learn the efficient frontier, most are misled to believe that the frontier is static and unchanging.  However, we should have all learned by recent experience that the frontier is as volatile as the assets that construct it.  If we lo...

Let’s take Modest Modeest for Moving Average one step further and use it in a basic tactical allocation system using Vanguard funds.  THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE AND VERY EASILY MIGHT CAUSE LARGE LOSSES.  VANGUARD FUNDS IMPOSE EARLY REDEM...

In response to the nice comment requesting an update to Monitoring Sources of Bond Return and also longer history, I thought I would update the original and then rerun with CPI to give a longer time series.  For even longer history back to 1919, s...

As an extension to the Bond Market as a Casino Game series and Historical Sources of Bond Returns-Comparison of Daily to Monthly, I thought a ggplot of risk and return by decade and Moody’s Rating might be helpful.  Anyone who has read those oth...

As a quick follow-up to my first REITs for Everybody Might Now Mean REITs for Nobody, I want to look at REITs and High Yield bonds, which also might simultaneously attract conservative yield buyers and speculative beta chasers.HYG (iShares High Yield) ...

THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE.  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN GAINS AND LOSSES. I did not intend for this to be a two-part series but I just could not be complacent with Utility Spread and Financial Turbulence (for avid readers, there was a sm...

THIS IS NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE.  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN GAINS AND LOSSES. In Long XLU Short SPY Part 2 (More History), I explored the defensive nature of the spread and its potential as a bond substitute in troublesome periods for stocks...