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Managing Municipal Market Credit Risk

Our process for managing credit risk in individual municipal bonds goes well beyond the credit ratings that they are assigned by credit rating agencies. While we believe these ratings have value, and they are one piece of information we consider, we also evaluate other parameters such as the bond issuer’s municipal market sector, municipality revenues…

The Risks of Yield-Seeking Strategies

In the past few years, some investors have asked us whether they should replace a portion of their high-quality bonds or bond mutual fund holdings with strategies ranging from high-dividend stocks to oil and gas master limited partnerships because “rates are low.” We have generally counseled investors that every one of these strategies involves substantially…

High-Yield Corporate Bonds as an Asset Class

Vanguard recently announced that it would be closing its high-yield corporate fund “effective immediately” and that the fund had received “approximately $2 billion” of flows over the past six months. While growth of Vanguard’s assets under management is almost always a good thing, a fund shuttering its doors to new flows makes one wonder just…

In Context Newsletter – Summer 2012

The financial and economic environment of the past few years has been challenging. To name just a few headline-grabbing items, investors have had to stare down a ratings downgrade of U.S. Treasury bonds by Standard & Poor’s, the European debt crisis (see sidebar on this page), high unemployment report after high unemployment report and very low rates of interest on bond investments. With all of these stories, which are incessantly focused on negative developments, it can be easy for investors to miss the good news. With the turbulent financial markets of 2008 and early 2009 now several years past, we can begin to put these developments in context.

Lessons From the Eurozone Debt Crisis

The Eurozone debt crisis is now in its third year, and we want to share our perspective on recent developments. It now appears more likely than ever that Greece may exit the Euro currency, and you may be wondering how such a development would affect the markets and our approach to investing. If Greece were…

In Context Newsletter — Spring 2012

Last year was challenging for globally diversified stock portfolios. While the S&P 500 Index was up 2.1 percent in 2011, the MSCI EAFE Index, which is basically the international equivalent of the S&P 500, was down 12.1 percent. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index was down 18.4 percent.

Risk and Expected Return Are Related

A mistake that is often made is to say that risk and reward are related when it comes to investing. But if risk and return were always related, there’d be no risk. It’s risk and expected return that are actually related. The price investors have to pay is the chance that the risk will actually…

The End of Social Security’s Interest-Free Loan

The end of Social Security’s payback option means there is less room for error when devising a strategy to maximize your Social Security benefits. The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) announced December 8 that, effective immediately, the ability to “pay back” Social Security benefits will be allowed only during the first 12 months following the…

Issues to Consider With a High-Dividend Approach

With the current low yields on fixed income securities, the financial media have produced many articles regarding high-dividend strategies. The following discusses two fundamental flaws with using these strategies as alternatives to either high-quality fixed income portfolios or to other equity strategies. While the financial media tout high-dividend strategies as alternatives to other prudent investment…

Understanding Interest Rate Risk

Many investors have responded to worries about interest rate risk by keeping their fixed income investments restricted to money market accounts and very short-term fixed income securities. The following discusses the risks of following such a strategy and what should be considered. Over the past year, we have received questions about the potential impact of…

Corporate Bonds Versus Treasury Bonds

While it is true that corporate bonds have outperformed Treasuries, we have not and do not recommend owning corporate bonds for two main reasons: 1) they contain some of the same risks that stocks do; and 2) the historical outperformance has been very small. One of the most important concepts of fixed income investing is…

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