Bonds Very Unlikely to Beat Stocks over Next Decade, Says Bogle

While bonds have performed very well in recent years, Vanguard Founder Jack Bogle says the odds are very high that stocks will outperform bonds over the next decade.

“I think the odds that stocks will give a higher return than bonds over the next decade are probably 85 to 90 percent,” Bogle said on CNBC’s Fast Money. “The fundamentals are that bonds are yielding maybe 2.5, 3 percent if you throw in some corporates, and stocks are yielding 2.2 percent in the S&P. Yet the S&P stocks are going to have earnings growth. There’s nothing extra the government can do or the bond issuer can do other than pay the agreed-upon coupon.”

Bogle expects earnings growth will be about 5% over the next decade, which makes for a 7% “fundamental return” on stocks over that period — that is, not including changes in valuations.

Bogle adds, however, that pension funds will have trouble hitting the 8% annual returns target some have cited. Such performance “would be off the charts from anything that is known in history on the assumption that all of these private equity fund manager will be above average,” he said.