Daniel Grizelj
The sovereign bond market is the largest securities market in the world. But how should we measure its performance? Which markets should we include, which currencies and which bonds?
- The FTSE WGBI was launched in 1984 and measures performance of investment-grade sovereign bonds.
- The index has grown 25 times since inception, now including bonds from 24 countries.
- China’s sovereign bonds are set to overtake Japan’s in the WGBI, reflecting significant market shifts.
The designers of the FTSE World Government Bond Index (WGBI) set out to answer these tricky questions four decades ago. They created a benchmark that immediately gained popularity with investors, traders, and market analysts worldwide.
Fixed income indices now lie at the core of modern finance, providing a set of financial indicators for investors, benchmarks for active portfolio managers, and a way of investing in the broader market through index…
