Fabian Moodley
The underlying assumption that government bonds of varying maturities is resilient to geopolitical risk due to their hedging properties has over the years caused excessive return losses. In attempt to rectify this, the study examines the effect of geopolitical risk on government bond returns of varying maturities under changing market conditions. In doing so, the study uses monthly data for the period January 2005 to September 2025. The findings of the Markov regime-switching model reveal that geopolitical uncertainty has an alternating effect on the South African government bond returns of varying maturities. In a bull market condition, geopolitical risk negatively effects 1-3-year bond returns and the All-Bond index return. However, in a bear market condition, geopolitical risk has a positive (negative) effect on 1-3-year and 3-7-year (7-12-year) bond returns. Moreover, the constant transition probabilities and expected duration reveal that the bull market condition prevails among the majority of the government bond returns of varying maturities, suggesting that on average the government bond returns are positive and increasing, making it resilient to fluctuating market conditions. These findings provide important implications for investors, portfolio managers and policy makers, such that investors and portfolio managers must consider the state of the market and geopolitical levels when determining optimal investment strategies. Similarly, policy makers ought to put in place resilient measures that limit the negative effect of geopolitical uncertainty in the South African bond market.