La fine della bolla nelle obbligazioni? Come riposizionare il portafoglio se i tassi di interesse salgono

In due articoli il Wall Street Journal torna sulla possibilità di una bolla nei mercati obbligazionari (e sul rischio che i piccoli investitori ne paghino le spese) e su come prepararsi a un possibile scenario di tassi di interesse in aumento. Secondo il WSJ

The bond market is a bubble, and the little guy is blowing it.
That has been a constant refrain on Wall Street lately, as retail investors poured over $375 billion into bond mutual funds last year and another $230 billion thus far in 2010 (...)
Retail investors certainly don't have a good track record when it comes to buying bond funds en masse. They pumped tens of billions of dollars into them in early 1987, right before rates shot up and bonds got pounded; the same thing happened in 1994.
But this time around, retail investors have had no choice if they wanted to earn income.(...)
Since spring, the Fed has essentially stopped buying, but it still holds $2.04 trillion in bonds, up $1.5 trillion from the end of 2008. This massive buying, nearly triple the amount that retail investors added to bond funds over the same period, has helped drive interest rates to near-record lows.
Meanwhile, foreign investors have bought $373 billion of Treasury debt so far this year, or nearly 60% more than U.S. households have put into all bond funds combined.
If anybody is to blame for a bond bubble, it isn't Joe Schmo; it's Uncle Sam, with some help from overseas.


Così i piccoli investitori rischiano di ritrovarsi nei guai se, magari dopo un'ultima breve fase di quantitative easing (ampiamente già scontata sia dai mercati valutari che, soprattutto, da quelli obbligazionari) l'economia U.S.A. si riprendesse un po', l'inflazione aumentasse e con questa i tassi di interesse. A un lunghissimo mercato toro per le obbligazioni potrebbe seguire una fase prolungata di rialzo dei tassi. Scrive il WSJ

Is it time to start positioning your portfolio for rising rates? (...) 
Bond yields have fallen for most of the past three decades. A $1,000 investment in the U.S. government debt in 1980 would be worth about $12,970 today, according to the Ryan Labs Treasury Composite Index. Treasury prices, which move in the opposite direction of yields, have surged 9.3% this year alone.
Now consider a different era: 1949 through 1979. Over that 30-year span, a $1,000 initial investment in Treasurys would have turned into a far humbler $2,950. That's because yields soared during the period; by 1980 the yield on the 10-year Treasury had reached a record high of nearly 16%.
Given that Treasury yields have since plunged back down to 2.5% or so, how much further can they fall?

Nel breve periodo, se la Fed intraprenderà una nuova fase di quantitative easing i tassi potrebbero scendere ancora un pochino (anche se è difficile immaginarli considerevolmente più bassi con lo yield sulle obbligazioni del Tesoro U.S.A. quinquennali pari all'1.1%, decennali al 2.4% e trentennali al 3.7%).
Ma se gli "ottimisti" (leggi "non catastrofisti") avranno ragione - tra i quali si annovera ad esempio Martin Wolf -  i tassi potrebbero non rimanere così bassi per lungo tempo:

Since the Fed can basically print money, investors would be wise to respect its ability to cause inflation if it desires.
It wouldn't take much of a rise in rates to pose problems for investors. A one-point jump in Treasury yields would translate to a 5% loss for the 10-year Treasury note and a 12% drop for a 30-year Treasury. 

Com'è possibile proteggersi dal rialzo dei tassi di interesse, e magari riuscire anche ad approfittarne? Il WSJ elenca alcune possibilità, accomunate dal focus sul breve periodo, sulla relativa indifferenza ai tassi di interesse e su una più marcata sensibilità alla crescita economica.

How to Play Rising Rates

• Floating-Rate Debt: Floating-rate loans gained 9.1% from September 1993 through November 1994 as the Federal Reserve raised rates 2.5 percentage points. Advice: Check the credit quality of the fund's portfolio and its use of leverage to ensure you're not adding too many other sources of risk.
• Dividend-Paying Stocks: Investors pick up an annual yield of 2.6% by buying the Dow for its dividends, compared with the 2.5% yield of the 10-year Treasury note. Advice: Investors can buy a dividend-weighted index fund to get a yield boost—and additional upside if rates rise.
• High-Yield Bonds: The SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF gained 7.2% during the past four months. Advice: Buy high-yield bond funds with short duration and an average credit rating close to BB—or buy one of three highyield ETFs.
• Convertible Bonds: Convertible bonds gained 18.1% in the 12 months starting May 2003, as 10-year Treasury yields rose 1.28 percentage points. Advice: Buy a multisector bond fund that has a large portion of its portfolio in convertible bonds.

I cosiddetti junk bonds in passato si sono ben difesi nei periodi di rialzo dei tassi di interesse. Dal punto di vista della valutazione relativa, lo spread attuale di circa il 6% rispetto alle obbligazioni del Tesoro U.S.A. di pari durata è in linea con la media storica e ben superiore al 2.6% dell'estate del 2007, prima della crisi finanziaria. Le obbligazioni convertibili, grazie all'opzione di conversione in azioni, sono molto meno sensibili ai movimenti dei tassi di interesse. 

Le azioni ad alto dividendo sembrano particolarmente attraenti in questo momento di incertezza, poichè dovrebbero garantire una buona protezione nel caso di perdurante inflazione bassa o di leggere deflazione, e rivalutarsi se i tassi aumentassero.Secondo il WSJ 

In 2003, when Treasury yields rose, equity-income stocks outperformed all other income-producing investments, with returns of 31.4%. They gained 7.6% for the 12-months beginning June 2005 when Treasury yields rose 1.22 percentage points. Much of those gains came from stock price appreciation: as bond yields rise investors tend to rotate into faster-growing stocks.
The bond rally has presented relative bargains in dividend-paying stocks. The Dow Jones Industrials have a dividend yield of about 2.6% now, compared with 2.5% for 10-year Treasurys. And dividend payments, like bond yields, tend to rise with inflation.
What's more, the regular dividend payments act as a cushion if stocks fall. "Dividend stocks should do well when yields rise, but also do well in a low-for-longer environment," says Hannes Hofmann, head of U.S. equities at JP Morgan Private Bank.(...)
Investors who want to do it themselves should focus on companies whose dividends are high, but not so high that they can't continue to grow. Since 1984, stocks in the second quintile of the Russell 1000 as ranked by dividend yield have outperformed the other four quintiles as well as companies that don't pay dividends, according to Savita Subramanian, head of quantitative strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 

Infine non bisogna dimenticarsi delle materie prime e, soprattutto, delle obbligazioni governative inflation-linked come i TIPS. Entrambe queste asset class dovrebbero fornire un'adeguata protezione nel caso di un aumento sostanziale ed improvviso dell'inflazione.