WASHINGTON (AP) — Bond yields are scraping along at record lows, but investors keep buying them, valuing the modest, fixed returns they pay over the bigger potential profits offered by stocks.

Bill Gross of PIMCO, perhaps the nation’s best-known bond fund manager, declared last week that people should think long and hard before buying stocks at all. Gross said in a letter that “the cult of equity is dying.” Investors have come to expect more growth from stocks than they can possibly deliver, Gross said.