This is actually true. So, I read a comment left on this blog:
I remember reading that, so well done Tim..Murphy on the other hand was recommending long dated gilts yielding 1% because they were “secure”..I wrote on his blog about duration risk in a rising interest rate environment and you were locking into a negative real yield. I was dismissed out of hand because 1) so much pension money is invested in and how could they be wrong 2) inflation will never be a problem and rates won’t ever go up…fukcing idiot, the same “secure” gilts are down between 30%-50% depending on maturity.
The very next thing I read is, going to Spud’s place to catch up:
“Suppose I am wrong?” is the most rarely asked question by those with most need to ask it
And guess what? That’s not Spud asking it about Spud.
He gets close of course:
Seen like this, there is nothing unusual about Musk. The bosses of the water companies that are in trouble display the same trait: they took on inflation-linked debt that will now kill their companies because they believed in their ability to forecast low inflation forever.
But still manages not to note that he also insisted inflation wouldn’t ever be a problem, that everyone should be investing in 1% bonds for the long term.
I’ve got some gilts exactly for that long term slow accrual . They have lost massively and no one else wants them.
If you buy gilts to hold to maturity (as some individuals and many pension funds do), it matters not what the current market price is. There’s almost always a market for gilts, but (if interest rates have risen in the interval) it will be at less than the price you paid for them.