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← Back to List2026.08.02#MacroeconomicSurvival#BondInvesting

[Macroeconomic Survival Prologue] The Asset I Trusted Most Made Me the Most Anxious ​

An investor's voyage in search of an anchor amid a storm

My Bond Account Hurt More Than My Stock Account ​

In 2022, every look at my account showed the same thing: stocks and bonds were falling together.

The decline in stocks was painful, but understandable. I had bought them knowing that volatility was the price of pursuing higher returns. What I could not easily accept was watching BND, LQD, and a Korean 30-year government bond ETF collapse at the same time.

Bonds were supposed to protect me at moments like this.

I believed that when stocks stumbled, bonds would reach out a hand and buy me time until the market recovered. But when the storm arrived, the roof of my supposed shelter began to cave in first.

There was something more painful than the loss itself.

I had been calling bonds “safe assets” without properly understanding how they worked. I had not distinguished what was safe, under which conditions it was safe, or how long I had to hold it for that safety to matter. I trusted the label bond and lowered my guard.

The asset I considered safest was the asset I understood least.

I Wanted to Send a Paycheck to My Future Self ​

I did not buy bonds merely to cushion a stock-market decline.

One day I will leave the company, and the paycheck that arrives every month will stop. Public and private pensions may help, but once I begin drawing them for living expenses, the balance will gradually shrink. I want to keep investing throughout retirement. To do that, I need cash flow that lets me avoid selling stocks at distressed prices during a bad market.

SCHD's dividends could form one part of that system. But entrusting my entire future paycheck to equity dividends did not feel comfortable. If I also owned assets that continued to pay contractual interest while corporate earnings and stock prices were under pressure, my retired self might be able to wait a little longer.

To me, bonds were not simply another line in a performance table.

They were a way to send today's money across time and deliver it to the future me after my salary disappeared.

That is why losses in bonds felt different from losses in stocks. It was not an offensive asset that had begun to shake. It was a pillar I had erected to protect my future.

Two Investment Journeys Began at the Same Time ​

Reading Evolution of Investment alone might create the impression that I found VOO, SCHD, and SPMO first, then moved on to bonds. Real life did not unfold in such neat chapters.

From 2022 through 2025, I was gradually refining my equity ETF portfolio through VOO, SCHD, and SPMO. It was the period in which I learned to manage my own fear and greed through three exposures: the market, value, and momentum.

At the same time, a very different experiment was unfolding in the bond side of my account. I began with BND, LQD, and Korean 30-year government bonds, retreated into cash and ultra-short bonds, then extended duration again in anticipation of rate cuts. As my conviction grew, I reached for inflation-linked bonds, leverage, and eventually currencies.

These were not consecutive stages. They were two journeys running through the same calendar.

Evolution of Investment looks at those years through equity ETFs and human psychology. Macroeconomic Survival revisits them through bonds, interest rates, inflation, and exchange rates.

On one side, I was searching for tools to govern myself. On the other, I was trying to understand economic forces I could not control.

The second journey led me into an even more dangerous illusion.

The Desire to Understand Became the Desire to Predict ​

At first, I simply wanted to know why my bonds were falling.

Then studying created an appetite. I read every line of Federal Reserve statements, waited for inflation releases, and studied dot plots and employment reports. Understanding why rates were rising was no longer enough. I wanted to call the peak before everyone else.

If I could identify the next rate cut, I thought I could capture the rebound in long-duration bonds. If I could read not only US interest rates but also the dollar and the yen, perhaps I could do more than recover my losses. Perhaps I could turn the macroeconomic cycle itself into profit.

A bond portfolio that had begun as a source of dependable cash flow slowly became my largest directional bet.

That transformation is why I am writing this record.

The problem was not that bonds were inherently dangerous. The problem was that I failed to notice the moment a humble desire to understand the market became the arrogant belief that I could predict it.

You Can Get the Destination Right and Still Fail to Survive the Voyage ​

Macroeconomic Survival is not the success story of someone who correctly forecast rates and currencies.

The view that Korean growth would slow may eventually prove right. Central banks will also cut rates at some point. But investing is not a game in which identifying the final destination is enough. How much further rates might rise, how far bond prices might fall, and whether I could endure the journey were entirely different questions.

I did not learn how to predict when the storm would arrive.

I learned that a portfolio needs a structure capable of surviving even when its forecast is wrong—or merely far too early.

To me, “Stay the Course” no longer means stubbornly holding the first product I bought. It means keeping sight of the purpose while admitting when a thesis is wrong and continuing to improve the way I travel.

Let us return to 2022.

I believed Korea's future growth rate would fall below that of the United States. To profit from that pessimistic view, I bought a 30-year Korean government bond ETF. The logic was persuasive.

The market, however, refused to move in the order I had imagined.

🌊 [Macroeconomic Survival Series]

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