By Nellie S. Huang
From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance
If there’s any truth to the adage “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” then the sun should be heating up the bond market sometime soon.
Despite a short rally in December, the bond market suffered its worst decline in decades, thanks to the Federal Reserve’s swift and sizable interest rate hikes in 2022. Bond prices and interest rates move in opposite directions; when rates rise, bond prices fall.
All told, there was “nowhere to hide,” says John Lovito, co-chief investment officer of global fixed income at American Century Investments. The broad bond benchmark, the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond index, fell a whopping 11.6 percent over the past 12 months ending in early December….