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Since the advent of modern financial markets, bonds have always had the reputation of being conservative \u2013 rather like an elderly family lawyer in a leather-bound chair frowning at more jumpy and excitable stocks.\xa0 Bonds would never make you rich.\xa0 However, they would provide you with a moderate, steady and dependable income.\xa0\nThis reputation was challenged in the 1970s and 1980s by Treasuries yielding more than 10%, in the wake of high inflation, and the explosive growth of the high-yield market.\xa0 In the decades that followed, yields drifted down in parallel with inflation but investor excitement was maintained by a steady stream of capital gains as well as income.\xa0 However, once monetary easing hit its peak in the days following the Great Financial Crisis, high-quality bond yields fell to levels that promised very little income and, at best, modest capital losses, assuming yields eventually recovered.