But the bigger investment story is the outsize return generated by long-term bonds, a category viewed by the market cognoscenti as toxic just over a year ago because of expectations of rising long-term rates.
This positive move for long-term bonds is one of the surprising investment outcomes of 2014, up there with the much-discussed plummeting price of oil
 
Over the past year, the iShares 20 + Year Treasury Bond ETF returned 28%, trouncing the 9% gained of the SPDR S&P 500 Trust. Even the SPDR Barclays Long Term Corporate Bond ETF, a good proxy for long- term corporates, was up 13.5% over the past year, edging out the stock market.
 
As Barron’s income-investment blogger Michael Aneiro put it late last week, the 30-year Treasury yield’s surprise fall from 3.942% at the end of 2013 to 2.749% a year later, per Tradeweb data, helped fueled this shocking outcome.
 
Few experts would have bet that long term yields could have moved down sharply last year. But all that talk about the end of the 30-year bull market in bonds was, in the end, just a lot of talk.
And some think that bonds can continue to perform well in the coming year for a variety of fundamental and technical reasons.
 
As the Wall Street Journal wrote Tuesday, many investors are seeking the safety of Treasuries because of the growing uncertainty over the global economic growth outlook, particularly in Europe and Asia, even though the U.S. economy is growing at a healthy 5% annualized clip in the third quarter and the Federal Reserve is moving away from keeping interest rates super low.
 
Indeed, during the last two trading days, the Dow has lost 462 points, while Treasury values have risen, pushing the yield on the 10-year note down to 1.95% on fears of a global slowdown that could impact U.S. companies with foreign exposure.
 
On the technical side of things, J.C. Parets, a chartist who is president of Eagle Bay Capital, writes in his All Star Charts blog that long-term Treasuries can continue to best the broader U.S. stock market this year.

Referring to a ratio of the aforementioned 20 Year + Treasury ETF compared to the SPDR fund, Parets writes that “not only does it appear [that this ratio] has found support at the 2007 lows, but we are now attempting to break out above the downtrend line from the March 2009 top.”
 
He concludes: “I see no reason to think that this [Treasury bond] outperformance will not continue. Economists keep telling us that rates are going higher. I’m not sure what they are looking at, but the Fed Fund Futures, that have gotten this dead right from the beginning, continue to suggest otherwise. We’ll stick with the market.”
 
Still, with the 10 year Treasury yield now below 2%, it’s hard to see that how Treasuries can eke out decent returns going forward.
 
On a very different topic, anyone who needs a reminder of just how difficult is it forecast the fortunes of individual stocks should read a Bloomberg piece today on some of the non-energy stocks that have been brought down by the bear market in crude-oil prices.
 
Who would have figured that regional banks like Fifth Third Bancorp or Cullen/Frost Bankers would be down 12% and 15%, respectively, since June because of big bets these banks made on loans to the domestic fracking industry?
 
And stocks prices have fallen more sharply for companies like Fluor Corp. and Flowserve which ““provide the services and sell the pipes, valves and assorted doodads used to pump oil and gas.”