If you bought long-dated treasury bonds in 2020, when interest rates were low, you've lost a ton of money:
That's quite a crash in only a few years. But who wants to buy an old bond yielding 1% when you can buy a shiny new 20-year bond today that yields 5%?
I would not refer to the predicable decline in long bond valuation of a period of years as a "crash", which describes a more sudden and unexpected event.
I learned in business school 40+ years ago that the value of long term bonds can be highly volatile to changes in interest rates, so there is nothing new here that hasn't happened in the past.
"That's how it crumbles,... cookie-wise."
If you bought Peloton stock in 2020, you also lost a lot of money.
Yes, well, this is a fundamental property of bonds. If you speculate in bonds, this is part of the game. If you buy and hold (to maturity), you already know what's going to happen with your investment since you aren't going to sell them in the open market.
Actually, you haven't lost any money until you sell it.
And if you hold it to maturity and sell it, you only "lost" the opportunity cost of investing something with a better return, not any principal or interest.
This is not true. If you held your bond to maturity, you lost money. People don't invest in bonds to get a certain yield. They do so to get a certain spread between inflation and the yield. As inflation goes up, that spread declines for a long term bond.
Sorry, but you are a moron. "People don't invest in bonds to get a certain yield." Yes they do. "They do so to get a certain spread between inflation and the yield." No they don't. If that s the goal they would invest in stock. And further proof of that is the consistent negative real interest rates on t-bills.
If you didn't see that coming, you shouldn't manage investments.
I just have Bond ETF's and except for VTEB they have lost a lot, but I get a monthly dividend of like 3.81% so it is OK.
You haven't lost any money if you hold the bond to maturity. Only complete idiots invest in bond funds for this very reason.