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Riding the Yield Curve: A Spanning Analysis

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Author Info

  • Galvani, Valentina

    () (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

  • Landon, Stuart

    () (University of Alberta, Department of Economics)

Abstract

The average return on long-term bonds exceeds the return on short-term bills by a large amount over short investment horizons. A riding-the-yield-curve investment strategy takes advantage of the higher returns on longer term bonds. This strategy involves the purchase of bonds with maturities longer than the investment horizon and the sale of these bonds, before they mature, at the end of the investment horizon. Most of the literature that evaluates this strategy compares only ex post average returns or Sharpe ratios. In this paper, we use spanning tests to provide formal statistical evidence on the benefits of investing in long bonds when the investment horizon is short. The results for both the US and Canada indicate that an investor with a short horizon is better off investing in short-term debt instruments than long-term bonds.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University of Alberta, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number 2011-19.

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Length: 38 pages
Date of creation: 01 Nov 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ris:albaec:2011_019

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Related research

Keywords: North American bond market; portfolio diversification; mean-variance spanning; yield curve;

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