I have actually been reducing my bond exposure down to zero in the last several years. I am in the wealth accumulation phase of my liquid asset portfolio, and am still rather young. Stocks have historically outperformed bonds for the longer time horizons that I am dealing with and I won't be tapping any of this money anytime soon. Remember people, there are a whole bunch of different types of bonds and you should consider each different bond class for very different reasons- High yield, muni, I-bond, and TIPS are all VERY different vehicles, don't bunch them into the same or you will get burned one way or another. If you already have more money than you know what to do with, don't need to be making any more, and your only concern is to preserve your purchasing power against inflation, then I can see TIPS being a useful vehicle for you, but if you are like me and still need your portfolio to appreciate above inflation, then your bond options are leaning towards the higher yield side of things. I personally feel that those bond prices don't have anywhere to go but down in the present interest environment, so I don't see any upside potential, and as the interest rates start to eventually tick back up to the target the Feds will impose, bond prices will more than likely drop dramatically as a result. No one knows when this will start to happen, but until I feel it is well underway I am reallocating away from bonds. Bonds are a very useful element of an already established and well diversified portfolio and if you rebalanced religiously during the last recession, it would have increased your returns during the last six years quite a bit. My situation is a little different in that I am in the accumulation phase and young and therefore stomached the volatility of the last recession easier than most, I took advantage of the recession by buying stocks on sale with new money from my income vs. reallocating money from other asset classes like bonds, like you would do with an already established portfolio.