Decoding of bond secrets puzzles Wall St

AFTER travelling to Memphis, Tennessee, pay respects to Elvis Presley at Graceland, then take a short drive to FTN Financial to partake in some of the best bond-market advice to be found anywhere.

Working for a firm based about 1,600km from Wall Street with roots that date back to the Civil War, FTN's Jim Vogel and Chris Low were among the few who correctly urged investors to ignore the consensus calling for an inevitable sell-off in bonds this year. Since at least 2011, FTN's head of interest-rate strategies and chief economist have rightly gone against the pack by calling for low yields.

While the bears point to signs of budding inflation and reduced purchases by the Federal Reserve as reasons to stay away from bonds, FTN says Treasuries - the global benchmark for everything from home mortgages to emerging-market debt - are years away from reverting to pre-financial crisis levels as the labour market struggles. Getting it right has never been more important after a borrowing binge helped push the amount of debt globally to US$100 trillion from US$70 trillion in 2007.