Woods: bull, bear or tiger?

Are there any trends in fixed income research that have been prominent in the past year?
Clearly, there have been two dominating trends that have served to exercise the mind, that being Fed easing and the entrenching effect of the Asian bid.
I guess we spent the first quarter of the year trying to discern the relationship and intensity of their respective influences and attempted to position our portfolio accordingly for the duration of the year.
I can't say we were the right way round 100% of the time as so often we found ourselves reverting to the analysis of fundamentals. Very dangerous!
Seriously, the Asian bid has pretty much re-written the investor and borrower profile of the Asian asset class. Valuations are changing perceptions of Asian risk as an emerging market adjunct and this year's phenomenal performance has encouraged high grade accounts to give us a second look.
From my discussions with the buy-side in Europe and the US, there's something of a resigned acceptance towards generic spread levels and the likelihood of this becoming an enduring feature of Asian risk. Poor risk adjusted yields and weak liquidity will be offset by strong total returns and low volatility.
Overall credit spreads have tightened, supported by Mr Greenspan, although this trend has by no means been a straight line. Throughout the course of the year Asia's risk markets have been punctuated with credit shocks which have jerked out yields and pushed investors onto the defensive. Remember we had the long-running Estrada saga, Malaysia's outlook downgrade, Argentine default fears, and of course September 11.
As far as generating research product and ideas, we've leant towards high grade and have been rewarded for doing so. Year-to-date, the high grade component of our Asian Dollar Bond Index has provided total returns of 11.53% against the high yield's 7.22%. Frankly when a bond fund is providing 11%-plus returns to investors, the risk/reward of going further down the credit curve is just not worth it.