Blackrock’s Rieder Launches Second New Bond ETF of the Year

hank

Rieder was interviewed Friday on Bloomberg WSW. Folks are probably already familiar with BINC which opened in May. Here’s a short excerpt from this week’s Barron’s:

”On Thursday, BlackRock became the latest to launch an actively managed bond ETF with the debut of an ETF version of its popular total return mutual fund. The BlackRock Total Return ETF is the second active ETF (BRTR) managed by Rick Rieder, CIO of global fixed income. In May, BlackRock unveiled the Flexible Income ETF, which now has $413.4 million in assets.The investor share class of the $18 billion BlackRock Total Return mutual fund—a Morningstar three-star gold-medal fund—has delivered annualized total returns of 3.97% over 15 years, beating 63% of its intermediate core-plus bond peers, according to Morningstar.”

Rieder indicated the newer ETF is very similar to the above mentioned mutual fund, What I don’t understand is the difference in risk (credit quality / duration / hedging) between the two new ETFs (BINC vs BRTR)? Which is more conservative? Which is expected to outperrform?

Your insights appreciated.

yogibearbull

Active ETF BRTR is core-plus, earlier BINC is multisector, so riskier (more HY/EM/convertibles).

hank

Thanks @Yogi - I’m eager to see the actual credit allocations for BRTR. (Own BINC, so am familiar with it.) However, I imagine looking at its mutual fund counterpart would give a good indication.

Sven

@yogibb, tough choice. Do you think Dodge & Cox family of fund will go the ETF route?

For disclosure, I have been a long time investor with DODIX.

Observant1

I don't know if Dodge & Cox is planning to launch any bond ETFs.
The Income Fund is already one of the largest actively managed
bond funds with $64.6B in total assets as of 09/30/2023.
Dodge & Cox launched X shares for most of their funds last year
to better serve the needs of defined-contribution plans.