Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
For Fixed-Income Investors, Time To Leave America: (GARBX)
FYI: Dear retail investors holding lame 0.75% bank certificates of deposits and U.S. Treasury bonds yielding a tad over 2% for 10 years. If you want your money to yield something outside of the stock market, then it’s time to leave the United States.
Not pack-your-bags, sell-your-home leave the United States. But time to diversify out of U.S. bonds and CDs and put that retirement money somewhere far, far away.
Don't disagree with the article, but my preference for China / Asia bonds is MAINX. I only have 2 bond funds and that is one of them. Not sure where you would go for a Brazilian bond focus.
Yep, I've been on the cusp of adding a preferred security fund to the income area of my portfolio for sometime. However, currently most of them are in good demand and at their 52 week highs. So, I've held off.
Those quarterlies are all over the place. I want to know that I can count on a pretty consistent amount. Nope, I'm not buying this one. I'm 61% in bonds: PRSNX, PTIAX and a portion of (balanced) PRWCX. I lately learned a particular fact: that PRSNX hedges to the dollar. That helps with consistency, too.
Don't disagree with the article, but my preference for China / Asia bonds is MAINX. I only have 2 bond funds and that is one of them. Not sure where you would go for a Brazilian bond focus.
MAINX is my pick too for Asia. It's part local, part U.S. currency (~ 50% USD now), so does well when the dollar's doing a dip but doesn't get completely killed when it rallies.
To Crash's point, I like the combo of MAINX and PRSNX for overall exposure that's partly local currency, mostly dollar-hedged, half or more EM, and fairly heavy Asia.
Per Brazil: Pimco's EM holdings in their various multisectors have usually been fairly heavy in Brazil. Maybe one of the Pimco EMs would be heavy Brazil, but I can't tell by the web site entries, which are weighted by duration and currency exposure only, not market weight. The monthly fund data spread sheets prob'ly show market weight, but I'm too lazy to dig further.
Cheers, AJ
P.S. Just reading the clip Ted provided about the article: holding some negative yielding issues is not wacky if you're positioning for an equity/credit downturn or just a risk offset for that exposure. Yield is not the only potential upside in bonds - capital appreciation is another, at times much more important, consideration. The negative yielders are "safe" ex-U.S. developed nation sovereigns that are being bought for that purpose exactly - thus the negative yield. Lots of knock-on effects there, including on U.S. rates and the dollar ...
Bloomberg TV's weekly program "Real Yield" (airs Fridays, also available online afterwards) is a good source for up-to-date news and trends in fixed income - highly recommended.
Comments
To Crash's point, I like the combo of MAINX and PRSNX for overall exposure that's partly local currency, mostly dollar-hedged, half or more EM, and fairly heavy Asia.
Per Brazil: Pimco's EM holdings in their various multisectors have usually been fairly heavy in Brazil. Maybe one of the Pimco EMs would be heavy Brazil, but I can't tell by the web site entries, which are weighted by duration and currency exposure only, not market weight. The monthly fund data spread sheets prob'ly show market weight, but I'm too lazy to dig further.
Cheers, AJ
P.S. Just reading the clip Ted provided about the article: holding some negative yielding issues is not wacky if you're positioning for an equity/credit downturn or just a risk offset for that exposure. Yield is not the only potential upside in bonds - capital appreciation is another, at times much more important, consideration. The negative yielders are "safe" ex-U.S. developed nation sovereigns that are being bought for that purpose exactly - thus the negative yield. Lots of knock-on effects there, including on U.S. rates and the dollar ...
Bloomberg TV's weekly program "Real Yield" (airs Fridays, also available online afterwards) is a good source for up-to-date news and trends in fixed income - highly recommended.