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Tag Archives: Investment Grade

Dec 13, 2022

Paying Dividends: Measuring Rising Income against Declining Risks in the iBoxx Fixed Income Indices

With the ZIRP world1 firmly in the rear view, the “income” in fixed income is back. As yields collapsed to record lows, income-starved investors sought alternative sources of income such as dividend strategies, which attracted record flows in related products throughout 2022. Now, with investment grade bond yields hitting as high as 6%, bonds are…

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May 14, 2020

Municipal Bonds Are Being Left Behind

Corporate bonds have garnered a lot of attention lately, as the Federal Reserve continues to stabilize markets by establishing multiple facilities that support both the primary and secondary corporate bond markets. As a result, credit spreads have tightened significantly from where they were in March. Since March 23, 2020, the option-adjusted spread on the S&P…

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Aug 7, 2019

Defensiveness of the Credit Strength Strategy in U.S. Corporate Bonds

Our fundamental credit strength strategy uses credit ratios to screen out issuers with risky credit profiles and construct corporate bond portfolios with strong credit quality (for a detailed methodology, please see our previous blog). Our research shows that a credit strength strategy can potentially reduce return volatility and improve drawdowns. Our goal in this blog…

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Aug 22, 2018

Puerto Rico Bonds: A Surging Force

After wreaking havoc on the municipal bond markets, Puerto Rico bonds have recently been adding value through their recovery. Bonds rallied after the latest debt restructuring deal was struck between the commonwealth and the bond holders. Additional supporting news, as mentioned in an article from Reuters,[1] was a federal court ruling affirming the budgetary powers…

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Mar 1, 2018

Laddered Protection

Continuing the theme of rising interest rates and following up from my last blog, “With all the News of Higher Interest Rates, Don’t Forget About Floating-Rate Debt,” bond laddering is a strategy that provides increased income and the ability to adjust the stream of income in a rising-interest-rate environment. The approach is to invest in…

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Dec 20, 2017

A Quick Performance Check on U.S. Preferreds

There are only a couple weeks to go until the end of the year, and for a while now, the investing public has seen plenty of material supporting the benefits or risks of diversifying a portfolio through the use of preferred securities. This hybrid type product touts the benefits of high yields, steady income, and…

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Jun 1, 2017

Canadian Update

Canada’s economy has been accelerating due to increased consumer spending and a rebound in business investment.  Consumer spending driven by vehicle purchases and real estate investment has lifted the economy, along with improved business investment.  The economy and its growth trend now appear to be on a more secure path.  As of May 31, 2017,…

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Mar 29, 2017

Bridging the Volatility Gap between IG and HY

The goal of the S&P U.S. High Yield Low Volatility Corporate Bond Index is to construct a high-yield bond portfolio with low credit risk and low return volatility by applying a low volatility factor.  Does the index methodology truly deliver the effect of reducing volatility?  The back-tested results of the 17-year period ending Feb. 28,…

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Feb 13, 2017

Rieger Report: The Uncorrelated

Why worry?  New highs for the U.S. stock market indices will keep coming, right?  Just in case, this might be a good time to examine asset classes that are not correlated to the equity market or the “uncorrelated”. Corporate bonds of the issuers in the S&P 500 are tracked in the S&P 500 Bond Index.  As a group…

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Dec 30, 2016

Rieger Report: Could the long end be range bound?

The long end of the yield curve for U.S. corporate and municipal bonds could be held range bound over the next several months as there are various forces at play. Drivers for yields to rise: Inflation expectations: actual and anticipated inflation can impact bond holders and hits the yields of long term bonds the hardest. Infrastructure programs:…

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