By Robin Marshall, director of fixed income, Global Markets Research
Despite a return in risk appetite in the second quarter, long-duration government bonds have remained the top-performing fixed-income asset in 2020. For example, 20-year+ US Treasuries have registered returns of almost 22% in US dollar terms this year (to end-June). UK gilts made gains of nearly 18% in sterling terms, although for a dollar investor, this was reduced to 10% due to currency weakness. Long-dated Canadian and German government bonds also held up well year to date despite yields edging higher in June (also see