Hoisington Investment Management ends a thirty-year bond bull call as inflation takes hold

Inflation taking hold and yields trending higher have ended a thirty-year bull run on bonds at Hoisington Investment Management. Chief economist Lacy Hunt has changed the view that defined the firm's identity across multiple rate cycles. The reversal closes one of the longest-running directional calls in fixed income.

Thirty years in one direction

A directional call held for more than thirty years is unusual in any asset class. Hoisington Investment Management and Lacy Hunt held theirs for that span, long enough for the stance to become a defining feature of the firm. The call was structural, an argument that conditions favored bonds over the long arc, not a position to be revisited each quarter. That argument has now changed.

What changed

When inflation takes hold, yields trend higher. Higher yields move against bond prices. The conditions that made a sustained bull case possible are, by Hoisington and Hunt's own assessment, no longer what the firm sees ahead. The view is now stated as changed.

A thirty-year directional reversal is not a quarterly adjustment. Fixed income markets will want to know what specifically confirmed the shift and what conditions would alter it again.

What to watch

The next step is a detailed statement from Lacy Hunt: what inflation dynamic or yield trajectory confirmed the reversal, and what threshold would change the view again. Hoisington's next published communication is the document to track. After more than thirty years in one direction, the terms of the reversal carry as much weight as the reversal itself.