One trap to watch out for is call dates. You may think you have locked in an attractive rate of return, then find you've lost out because the issuer has redeemed the bond ahead of maturity date at a price that leaves you with much less gain than you expected. Companies are currently keen to refinance at lower interest rates for many purposes, including share buybacks and balance-sheet strengthening.

If you want to invest in corporate bonds, you would probably do better buying into funds rather than directly into the bonds.

A useful website, seekingalpha.com, recently listed its "top ten" corporate bond exchange-traded funds in the US, but their average dividend yield was only 2.6 per cent.

If income is important to you, equities would seem to make more sense.

I have put together a portfolio (see box) of ten international shares that offers an overall dividend yield of about 4 per cent, well covered by the companies' earnings, and therefore relatively low risk.

An average earnings yield of 12 per cent a year, even making the conservative assumption that such high-yielding companies won't be able to grow their profits in future in a bad economic environment, looks very attractive compared to bonds currently paying 2 to 4 per cent, with no underlying growth (although they could deliver gains through even more yield compression).

If protection of your capital - with perhaps some upside potential - is more important to you than current income, then the structure of your investment portfolio has to be shaped by your outlook.

If you are worried about a gloomy future, it makes sense to invest in the safest long-term sovereign bonds, gold, and the lowest-risk companies such as Dividend Aristocrats and Autonomies.

David Fuller's view Martin Spring has been right on bonds and his detailed assessment forms a handy user's guide for HNW investors interested in this sector. He rightly points out that this has been one of the great all-time bull markets, as you can see from this long-term chart of the Merrill Lynch 10-Year US Treasury Total Return performance.

Many of us will look at this trend and kick ourselves, including me. Its consistency suggests that it is not over but is it safe, as people hope? It has been but how much further can we extrapolate this trend? Martin Spring adds:

The strongest sovereign bonds will remain one essential component of a low-risk portfolio for a long time to come. They will only become risky when central banks start raising interest rates in response to rising inflation. That will happen eventually, but now it's not even on the radar screen.

OK, these markets remain in form but a low risk 30-year bull markets sounds like an oxymoron to me. I question whether savvy investors who have helped to fuel this trend will wait for the Fed to raise interest rates before jumping ship. I find it difficult to believe that investors will remain sanguine as the runaway budget deficit continues. Would not the bonds of countries or companies with strong balance sheets be safer?

I think many subscribers will be interested in Martin Spring's list of 10 international shares which he suggests as an equity income alternative. The first and the last of those listed are core holdings in my personal long-term equity portfolio. The performance of these and many other high-yielders are frequently reviewed by Eoin.

Never shy of controversy, Martin Spring's other main headlines are:

"Doses of 'morphine' numb the pain, but don't cure"
"A minefield for individual investors"
"Britian: the Truth about Immigration"
"What Needs to be Done" (Ed: more on banks)
"Starting a Business in Italy" (Ed: and you think you encounter bureaucracy)
"The Profits of Oppression"
"Tailpieces"