Fixed-income arbitrage is an investment strategy generally associated with hedge funds, which consists of the discovery and exploitation of inefficiencies in the pricing of bonds, i.e. instruments from either public or private issuers, yielding a contractually fixed stream of income.
Most arbitrageurs who employ this strategy trade globally.
In pursuit of their goal of both steady returns and low volatility, the arbitrageurs can focus upon interest rate swaps, US non-US government bond arbitrage, US Treasury securities, forward yield curves, and/or mortgage-backed securities.
The practice of fixed-income arbitrage in general has been compared to "picking up nickels in front of a steamroller". However, despite this notion, some research has shown that consistent excess returns may be earned with this approach and as more hedge fund capital is allocated towards these strategies, excess returns will begin to diminish.