Trends and analysis for fixed-income investing strategies, including individual bonds, bond ladders, bond funds and bond ETFs.
Nov 1, 2011
By Diana Britton
While emerging market stocks have been touted for the last couple years as the investment du jour, the message at an Eaton Vance outlook event this morning was quite the contrary....
Nov 1, 2011
By Stan Luxenberg
Afraid of equities, retail investors continue to pour money into bond funds. Why not try a mix?...
Oct 14, 2011
By Diana Britton
After experiencing the financial crisis of 2008, clients have a different outlook on market volatility and are reacting differently to the current environment, said advisors at the Peak Advisor Alliance conference this week in Omaha, Neb. Clients are less focused on returns, and are more focused on not losing money, said Kelly Campbell, president of Campbell Wealth Management, during a panel session Friday morning. ...
Sep 1, 2011
By Brad Zigler
Can you buy outperformance cheaply?...
Sep 1, 2011
By Diana Britton
Despite an opportunity to buy stocks on the cheap, retail investors still have a risk-adverse bias, according to recent fund flows. Year-to-date through July, investors have yanked $17.8 billion from equity mutual funds, with outflows of about $31.6 billion in July and $22.9 billion in June, according to the Investment Company Institute. Meanwhile, about $95.4 billion has flowed into taxable bond mutual funds through July, including inflows of $12 billion in June and $9.8 billion in July, ICI said....
Aug 29, 2011
By Stan Luxenberg
During the market turmoil of recent years, most municipal funds have delivered solid returns by following plain-vanilla strategies. Typical portfolio managers have bought a cross section of investment-grade bonds. Not surprisingly, fund returns tended to be bunched in a close pack. But not all managers are content to stay in the middle of the field. A few stars have topped the averages by following unusual strategies. ...
Aug 9, 2011
By Charles Paikert
S&P’s downgrade isn’t the problem, say wealth management and family office executives; it’s worse than that. The problem is the nations’ underlying structure of political, economic and fiscal problems—they are a legitimate cause for long-term concern. To put it in computer-speak: the United States is hardwired for doom....
Aug 5, 2011
By Rosalyn Retkwa
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has become the first U.S. underwriter to offer the World Bank’s new green bonds to retail investors in $1,000 denominations ...
Aug 4, 2011
Expect these people to change your world in the next 12 months....
Aug 1, 2011
By Kevin McKinley
Anxious clients can find plenty of excitement in boring old savings bonds....
Jul 12, 2011
By Stan Luxenberg
At a time when the markets are plagued by sluggish economic growth and unnerving debt burdens, some prominent funds are avoiding major categories of stocks or bonds....
Jul 1, 2011
By Nathan Wendler
Even traditional safe havens are suddenly viewed with caution. Welcome back the go-anywhere bond fund...
May 10, 2011
By Stan Luxenberg
Advisors don’t appreciate how cautious clients have become, said speakers at the Investment Company Institute’s recent general membership meeting in Washington yesterday. Despite two years of rising markets, clients continue to hold big amounts of cash...
Apr 28, 2011
By Diana Britton
With interest rates and inflation expected to rise in the months ahead, investors and advisors are focusing their attention on managing the risks in their fixed income portfolios, according to panelists at Wednesday’s Closed-End Funds and Global ETFs Capital Link Forum...
Apr 27, 2011
By Kevin McKinley
Many of your Boomer clients have elderly parents who are facing a seemingly unsolvable problem: how to produce enough income to cover increasing living costs without jeopardizing investment principal. But for families in the right situation, it’s possible to dramatically improve the cash flowing to the older parent, without risking the value of (or access to) her “rainy day” fund. Here’s how reverse mortgages can serve as an unorthodox solution to a common dilemma. ...
