Research background: Institutional investors such as: commercial banks, pension funds, and insurance companies are constantly looking for low-risk stable investment opportunities, whereas one of the solutions can be a simulated portfolio. This research takes a look at the incentive to invest in government debt portfolios, as it can outperform the returns of deposit accounts. Purpose of the article: This study considers several classic methods of portfolio constriction and includes the basis of debt instruments that have not been a research topic for a long period of time. At the same time, this paper analyzes the classic methods of modern portfolio theory with a Sharpe ratio as an indicator of efficiency. Methods: The constructed portfolio consists of four elements from different countries: two government obligations and two bond indexes, aiming to employ international diversification. All the data was collected for the period of 12 years in order to represent the consequences of accrued recessions. Findings & Value added: The past two severe financial crises created a higher demand for stable investments, and more investors are ready to compromise a higher return for it. There-fore, the results of this paper represent a simulation of low-risk hedge fund portfolio construction with the use of highly rated debt instruments.

This paper analyzes the factors that contribute to the government obligations yield to maturity on the EU and US markets. Both, the bond characteristics and macroeconomic factors are taken into account, and the magnitude of each of the factor is provided which compose the average yield to maturity. Due to a severe financial crisis in the past years, economies are still recovering from the effects what makes investors to look for the stable investment instruments. Results of this study are a good fundamental for private investors that desire a stable return with a low-risk exposure. The factors and obtained coefficients included in the paper, can be used by investors, both private and institutional, to understand the magnitudes of the premiums that they can take on by varying the bond characteristics which account to the bond yield to maturity. Investors can decide at which premiums they are willing to focus, to obtain the desired expected returns.