"On Bonds - you never get a parabolic blow off in the price of the things as we approach the zero bound but have a look at a chart of issuance and then the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet assuming you can get the chart on one page and the lesson is obvious - well to some of us anyway!

"Interestingly the period when the Aristocrats showed negative correlation to the S&P was 2000/02 when the tech wreck flight to safety was as much into value stocks as Treasuries. Without that short spurt of outperformance I doubt there would be much in it come 2012. But it does suggest that if we are headed into another "wreck" they may well hold up again."

David Fuller's view You are right on both counts.

Eoin produced this chart of Total Public Debt to GDP for the US, and also this graph of US Total Public Debt. The information is sobering, to put it mildly.

He then compiled this graph comparing S&P Dividend Aristocrats with the S&P 500 Index on a total return basis from the end of 2002. The orange line, showing Dividend Aristocrats has increasingly outperformed since the 1Q 2009 lows.