During this bull market which in August broke the record as the longest ever, interest rates were so low that most fixed income assets other than junk bonds yielded less than the inflation rate or the dividend yield on the S&P 500. This drove yield-hungry investors to stocks, the one asset that delivered a real rate of return, or return on investment adjusted for inflation.
"One of the big influences in the market over the last decade has been that bonds as an alternative have been pretty much out of the market," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Wealth Advisors in Chicago.
"There is historically a tug of war between stock investing and bond investing and since the financial crises the bond market has been in the tug of war with one arm tied behind its back," he said.