TIPS Fund in 401K or Rollover and Create Ladder

[BeachOrCity]

Retired about 1 year, age 54, and have decided that TIPS should be a big part of my bond allocation. Hoping that folks more experienced with bonds and TIPS can give me some good advice.
Because of tax issues w/ TIPS trying to put the TIPS in my Non Roth 401K. I am not that experienced with fixed income or bonds in general.

I have never been entirely comfortable w/ bond funds or tips funds because I feel I don't have that "value at maturity" the way I do w/ individual bonds or TIPS. And with TIPS, I feel there is this "X Factor" that if some black swan event happens and everyone moves to TIPS, the pricing of my TIPS fund will be impacted significantly because of all the cash inflows and the effect on average yield and pricing.

I am allowed to do a partial withdraw / rollover from my 401K to an IRA (will most likely use Fidelity), and am thinking about pro's / con's for rolling over a big chunk of my bond allocation to an IRA and then making a TIPS ladder with it. Ladder would probably start in 2025 and build it out over time to say 2040 or maybe even further.

Some thoughts / facts:
-- My 401K is w/ Mega-corp and has best in class fund options with super low fees (the TIPS fund is 0.02%).
-- I can never get the money back in the 401K after I take it out, so the decision is permanent.
-- Not particularly thrilled about current TIPS real yields (but at least they are not negative). Given projected inflation the real yield about matches or exceeds regular treasuries and I get the inflation protection bonus.
-- I really like the idea of knowing I can buy a TIPS that matures in Jan 2030 and KNOW it will be the worth the amount I start at plus inflation, plus the minimal yield.

Questions:
-- Do folks think that the benefits of individual TIPS are significant enough to warrant pulling this money from 401K (given 401K low costs).
-- Is fidelity IRA a good place for these (seems like they charge $0 for secondary TIPS, but maybe they do a yield spread markup I can't see)?
-- Since I can make 401K withdraws (or partial rollovers) up to 4 times a year, do people feel that building this over time makes sense (i.e. DCA from bond funds to individual TIPS over 2-3 years or something).
-- Is my thinking on how a black swan could effect a TIPS fund sound?
-- Anything else that is key that I am not presently considering?

 

[OldShooter]

-- Do folks think that the benefits of individual TIPS are significant enough to warrant pulling this money from 401K (given 401K low costs).

That's really an asset allocation question that only you can answer. I would observe though that holding a TIPS tranche is really low cost, like zero.

-- Is fidelity IRA a good place for these (seems like they charge $0 for secondary TIPS, but maybe they do a yield spread markup I can't see)?

Call and ask them. I buy bonds from the Schwab bond desk, always with a phone call. The guy I have most often talked to has 14 years in the business and is not commissioned. My guess is that Fido has something similar and they will be really comfortable to deal with. Sometimes I pay $25/trade to talk to a person. Sometimes they waive it. Buying on the auction is IIRC free.

-- Since I can make 401K withdraws (or partial rollovers) up to 4 times a year, do people feel that building this over time makes sense (i.e. DCA from bond funds to individual TIPS over 2-3 years or something).

Well, no one knows the future. If a DCA makes you more comfortable, that's fine. But are you really worried about timing the TIPS market? Really?

-- Is my thinking on how a black swan could effect a TIPS fund sound?

A black swan is by definition an unknown unknown, so how can its effect be predicted? One known unknown is future inflation. If it goes crazy IMO the treasury will stop issuing TIPS and panicked buyers will bid them up beyond the usual YTM calculations. If you are a seller at that point, maybe just to fund a year's retirement, you will be a happy guy IMO.

-- Anything else that is key that I am not presently considering?

Yes. TIPS don't really have a yield curve. A yield curve is mostly about predicted inflation and TIPS have taken that variable out of the equation. A main reason for a ladder is the yield curve. A secondary reason is to arrange maturities that suit cash flow needs. For ourselves, we bought very serious six figures of the 2%/2026 back in 2006. (criteria: the longest possible with the lowest coupon; fire and forget) Just the one issue, thus friction free. When interest rates crashed the TIPS were worth 150% of what we paid. We looked like geniuses but it was just luck. Now that we are older and have a shorter time horizon we are selling from that wad of bonds as we need cash. So in our case we never had and IMO will never need a ladder.

 

[njhowie]

Understand that interest on TIPS is exempt from state and local taxes - when held in a taxable account. So, inside a traditional 401k or IRA you are going to lose that benefit as all withdrawals are going to be taxable even at state/local level. Considering that TIPS issued today are going to have an extremely low interest rate, it's likely not going to amount to much, so might be a non-issue.

My personal issue with TIPS is that you are actually hoping that inflation takes off, otherwise your returns are going to be extremely low. Additionally, you have the Federal Reserve working against you to keep inflation under control. I really wouldn't want to be in an investment where you are wagering that the Federal Reserve fails in its mandate and over an extended period of time. Should they see inflation potentially overshooting their target range, the Fed would act swiftly to bring it back down. It doesn't mean they will necessarily be successful, but they will utilize policy they have at their disposal to keep inflation low.

Personally, I would opt for keeping the funds inside the 401k and utilizing the plans stable value fund. Since you indicate that the plan offers best in class options, they certainly should have a stable value fund. That will pay something around 1% to 2% higher than current money market rates and will adjust higher as interest rates go up.

 

[BeachOrCity]

Understand that interest on TIPS is exempt from state and local taxes - when held in a taxable account. So, inside a traditional 401k or IRA you are going to lose that benefit as all withdrawals are going to be taxable even at state/local level. Considering that TIPS issued today are going to have an extremely low interest rate, it's likely not going to amount to much, so might be a non-issue.

My personal issue with TIPS is that you are actually hoping that inflation takes off, otherwise your returns are going to be extremely low. Additionally, you have the Federal Reserve working against you to keep inflation under control. I really wouldn't want to be in an investment where you are wagering that the Federal Reserve fails in its mandate and over an extended period of time. Should they see inflation potentially overshooting their target range, the Fed would act swiftly to bring it back down. It doesn't mean they will necessarily be successful, but they will utilize policy they have at their disposal to keep inflation low.

Personally, I would opt for keeping the funds inside the 401k and utilizing the plans stable value fund. Since you indicate that the plan offers best in class options, they certainly should have a stable value fund. That will pay something around 1% to 2% higher than current money market rates and will adjust higher as interest rates go up.

Yes, we do have stable value fund with a nice yield....good points you make above. My TIPS fund (now) or ladder (later) is only part of my bond holdings. Definitely would not do all of it as TIPS....was thinking 1/3 to 1/2.

 

[OldShooter]

... My personal issue with TIPS is that you are actually hoping that inflation takes off, otherwise your returns are going to be extremely low. Additionally, you have the Federal Reserve working against you to keep inflation under control. I really wouldn't want to be in an investment where you are wagering that the Federal Reserve fails in its mandate and over an extended period of time. Should they see inflation potentially overshooting their target range, the Fed would act swiftly to bring it back down. It doesn't mean they will necessarily be successful, but they will utilize policy they have at their disposal to keep inflation low. ...

Oh, I have a totally different take on it:

Consider fire insurance on our house. We buy fire insurance but that doesn't mean we are hoping for the house to burn down. Quite the contrary, we hope that the fire department is well-staffed and has good equipment to help us in the unlikely event of a fire. So our buying fire insurance is, I guess, a sort of wager but we "win" if the house does not burn down. If we do get a fire, the insurance $$ will mitigate the damage but that outcome is still undesirable. We lose but we lose less because we have the insurance.

TIPS are the same. Fire insurance. The "premium payment" for inflation insurance is the slightly reduced yield we get vs other govvies.

Anyone hoping for big inflation, whether they own TIPS or not, just doesn't understand what they are wishing for.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Most employer based 401Ks have pretty cheap asset protection due to ERISA protection laws. We have not rolled over our old employer 401Ks to IRAs for that reason. We had a 401K from a small business retirement plan we shut down after we retired. We had to roll those funds over to IRAs and that is where we hold most of our individual TIPS. Some employer 401K plans may allow investment in individual TIPS if they have a brokerage option. It depends on what is in the plan documents for allowable investments.


If your plan allows for partial rollovers but not investment in individual TIPS, you could split the difference by rolling over half the money to an IRA, using the 401k for the TIPS funds and the IRA for the individual TIPS.

 

[gwraigty]

Most employer based 401Ks have pretty cheap asset protection due to ERISA protection laws. We have not rolled over our old employer 401Ks to IRAs for that reason.

A good point and it bears repeating that IRA/Roth IRA protection can vary with state law. My state gives complete protection to them, which is fortunate. My husband's 401k does not allow funds to remain in them after the year in which you turn 70 1/2. He must either take a lump sum (no way that's happening!) or roll over to an IRA and Roth IRA.

 

[MichaelB]

If you’re going to buy TIPs, buy new issues. If there is deflation that results in a negative CPI, it will reduce the inflation adjustment value of an outstanding TIP. If you buy new, the redemption value will not fall below the original principle. If you buy secondary or fund, it already has some inflation adjustment and that could be lost.

 

[OldShooter]

If you’re going to buy TIPs, buy new issues. If there is deflation that results in a negative CPI, it will reduce the inflation adjustment value of an outstanding TIP. If you buy new, the redemption value will not fall below the original principle. If you buy secondary or fund, it already has some inflation adjustment and that could be lost.

Do you have a Treasury citation or link for that? AFIK the only adjustments to TIPS values are upwards. So if negative CPI I think nothing happens. Also, a "new" TIPS after 6 months is an "outstanding" TIPS whether it has changed hands or not, and it has an inflation adjustment -- so I don't think your new/outstanding idea really makes sense.

Agree on not using funds for a lot of reasons. Bad idea for any govvies, paying a fee for nothing more than clerical work.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

A good point and it bears repeating that IRA/Roth IRA protection can vary with state law. My state gives complete protection to them, which is fortunate. My husband's 401k does not allow funds to remain in them after the year in which you turn 70 1/2. He must either take a lump sum (no way that's happening!) or roll over to an IRA and Roth IRA.

Good point about the state laws. IRA asset protection laws vary by state, some better than others.

 

[jIMOh]

replying to follow
Do most brokerages allow for purchasing of the bond itself?

 

[OldShooter]

... Do most brokerages allow for purchasing of the bond itself?

As far as I know, yes. if buying, it is important to know if they are acting as "principal" (they own the bond and are selling it to you) or "agent" (they are buying the bond on the open market and charging a fee. As agent they can also buy treasuries on the auction as a "noncompetitive" bidder. "With a noncompetitive bid, a bidder agrees to accept the rate, yield, or discount margin determined at auction." (https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/auctfund/work/work.htm) Because you can do this through your broker at nominal or no cost, there is no reason IMO to screw around with Treasury Direct.

There are sometimes horror stories about brokers acting as principal and taking a huge markup. As agent, this is harder for the because the fee is explicit. Caveat emptor.

 

[samclem]

Do you have a Treasury citation or link for that? AFIK the only adjustments to TIPS values are upwards. So if negative CPI I think nothing happens. Also, a "new" TIPS after 6 months is an "outstanding" TIPS whether it has changed hands or not, and it has an inflation adjustment -- so I don't think your new/outstanding idea really makes sense.

Agree on not using funds for a lot of reasons. Bad idea for any govvies, paying a fee for nothing more than clerical work.

MichaelB can chime in, but here's what I found (from here):

What happens to TIPS if deflation occurs? The principal is adjusted downward, and your interest payments are less than they would be if inflation occurred or if the Consumer Price Index remained the same. You have this safeguard: at maturity, if the adjusted principal is less than the security's original principal, you are paid the original principal.

So, there's no "ratcheting" protection, but at maturity, if there's been overall deflation, you'd get the same amount for the bond that you paid.

But on the secondary market: If there's been inflation since the bond was issued, but net deflation after the new purchaser bought it, it is possible that the new purchaser would have experienced net deflation but would not be compensated for it due to the inflation "cushion" that was already in the price of the bond when he bought it.

It does seem unlikely to me that we'd have net deflation over an extended period, but I'm sure it is possible. It is a "free" feature of the bond, so it seems to be worth having, in theory. The "price" is the inconvenience of having to deal with the Treasury Direct site.

 

[OldShooter]

Thank you. I stand corrected.

 

[Spock]

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, again, but every time I tip-toe into TIPS (no pun intended) at Fidelity, there are 0 available... right now there are 0 available in secondary and auction.
So if rolling the 401k somewhere to get individual TIPS you might be better off parking it somewhere for access to treasurydirect.


I fiddled with the TIPS fund in my (huge company) 401K and came away unimpressed with bond funds. I'm still struggling with the details of buying individual bonds (getting my math to match theirs), but so far I'd rather buy individual bonds vs. funds.

I did move a experimental amount to the 401k's access to VWIAX, with is 60ish% bond fund, but we'll see long term.

The mechanics of a Stable Value fund make my brain hurt (insurance company wrap contracts, etc), but the continued 3% during the 2008/2009 dip and late 2018 lets me sleep better at night if I ignore the mechanics: "some SVFs managed by State Street Corp. would have experienced losses in 2008 if the company hadn't contributed more than $610 million to make the funds whole." (State Street has a slice of the SVF in my 401k).

 

[OldShooter]

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, again, but every time I tip-toe into TIPS (no pun intended) at Fidelity, there are 0 available... right now there are 0 available in secondary and auction. ...

As I said, I am a Schwab customer but on their site I see too many secondary market TIPS to easily count. I suggest calling Fido; there must be a way for you to see these as well. Re auctions, TIPS auctions are not frequent. Not like T-bills. I don't remember the schedule but certainly it is on the Treasury site.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, again, but every time I tip-toe into TIPS (no pun intended) at Fidelity, there are 0 available... right now there are 0 available in secondary and auction.
So if rolling the 401k somewhere to get individual TIPS you might be better off parking it somewhere for access to treasurydirect.

Fidelity has a newsletter you can sign up for and get get notices about a week out when the next TIPS auction is occurring. The general auction frequency for TIPS is on the Treasury Direct site: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/marketables/tips/tips.htm

TD also has an auction newsletter sign up on the link above, though I get the Fidelity one myself.

 

[BeachOrCity]

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, again, but every time I tip-toe into TIPS (no pun intended) at Fidelity, there are 0 available... right now there are 0 available in secondary and auction.
So if rolling the 401k somewhere to get individual TIPS you might be better off parking it somewhere for access to treasurydirect.


I fiddled with the TIPS fund in my (huge company) 401K and came away unimpressed with bond funds. I'm still struggling with the details of buying individual bonds (getting my math to match theirs), but so far I'd rather buy individual bonds vs. funds.

I did move a experimental amount to the 401k's access to VWIAX, with is 60ish% bond fund, but we'll see long term.

The mechanics of a Stable Value fund make my brain hurt (insurance company wrap contracts, etc), but the continued 3% during the 2008/2009 dip and late 2018 lets me sleep better at night if I ignore the mechanics: "some SVFs managed by State Street Corp. would have experienced losses in 2008 if the company hadn't contributed more than $610 million to make the funds whole." (State Street has a slice of the SVF in my 401k).

When you go into fidelity bond pricing tool there is an easy to miss sub option under govt for TIPS. they are listed separately.

When I pulled up one or two years their quoted ytm was in line with quoted real treasury yields.

 

[samclem]

I've been thinking that a target maturity TIPS ETF might be an interesting product. Like the "Bullet" products for corporate bonds, the ETF would liquidate in the "target year" and all the proceeds (including any adjustment for inflation/deflation) would go to those owning the ETF shares at that time. Until then, the shares would be easily traded on the open market. The share price of the ETF would behave a lot like an individual TIPS (and less like a "typical" TIPS fund with a range of maturities). If inflation takes off and the government stops issuing TIPS, these ETF shares might be pretty desirable.

Obviously, the down side (compared to buying individual TIPS) is the expense ratio/any trading fees. Theoretically, the ERs could be pretty low--there's no need to do any evaluation of the underlying securities, etc.

For investors, a significant advantage would be avoiding the headache of dealing with Treasury Direct, and allowing quick and simple purchases/sales any time using any existing brokerage account. These ETF shares could be easily put in an IRA, it's not possible to set up a Treasury Direct IRA account.

An advantage of the corporate bond target maturity ETFs (compared to buying individual corporate bonds) is diversification across many securities, which helps reduce default risk. This (hopefully!) isn't a significant factor in these government issued securities.

Well, I suppose if there were a market for these things, someone would already be selling them. Wall Street is >not< short of creativity when it comes to inventing new products.

 

[OldShooter]

I've been thinking that a target maturity TIPS ETF might be an interesting product. Like the "Bullet" products for corporate bonds, the ETF would liquidate in the "target year" and all the proceeds (including any adjustment for inflation/deflation) would go to those owning the ETF shares at that time. Until then, the shares would be easily traded on the open market. The share price of the ETF would behave a lot like an individual TIPS (and less like a "typical" TIPS fund with a range of maturities). If inflation takes off and the government stops issuing TIPS, these ETF shares might be pretty desirable.

Obviously, the down side (compared to buying individual TIPS) is the expense ratio/any trading fees. Theoretically, the ERs could be pretty low--there's no need to do any evaluation of the underlying securities, etc.

For investors, a significant advantage would be avoiding the headache of dealing with Treasury Direct, and allowing quick and simple purchases/sales any time using any existing brokerage account. These ETF shares could be easily put in an IRA, it's not possible to set up a Treasury Direct IRA account.

An advantage of the corporate bond target maturity ETFs (compared to buying individual corporate bonds) is diversification across many securities, which helps reduce default risk. This (hopefully!) isn't a significant factor in these government issued securities.

Well, I suppose if there were a market for these things, someone would already be selling them. Wall Street is >not< short of creativity when it comes to inventing new products.

I don't think such a product makes any sense. I can buy a bunch of TIPS in my choice of maturity with a single phone call to the Schwab bond desk. 5 minutes tops. Same availability with Vanguard and Fido, I expect, and probably others. I can also buy on the auction if I want. I don't know why anyone would ever screw with TreasuryDirect.

 

[samclem]

I've been thinking that a target maturity TIPS ETF might be an interesting product. . . .
Well, I suppose if there were a market for these things, someone would already be selling them. Wall Street is >not< short of creativity when it comes to inventing new products.

I don't think such a product makes any sense. I can buy a bunch of TIPS in my choice of maturity with a single phone call to the Schwab bond desk. 5 minutes tops. Same availability with Vanguard and Fido, I expect, and probably others. I can also buy on the auction if I want. I don't know why anyone would ever screw with TreasuryDirect.

Well, I think you answered my question. But folks buy a lot of T-bill and T-bond ETFs and MFs, so there must be some reason (and it's not due to better performance compared to the underlying bonds). Maybe it is just the "packaging" as MFs and ETFs that is more familiar/accessible to many individual investors who might never have dabbled in buying individual bonds.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I don't think such a product makes any sense. I can buy a bunch of TIPS in my choice of maturity with a single phone call to the Schwab bond desk. 5 minutes tops. Same availability with Vanguard and Fido, I expect, and probably others. I can also buy on the auction if I want. I don't know why anyone would ever screw with TreasuryDirect.

Fidelity doesn't charge anything to buy TIPS at auction, so as long as they have that policy we'll go through them. Every time an auction comes up we look at the expected rate, our available cash and decide how much if any to buy and from there it probably takes under a minute to place an online order.

 

[OldShooter]

... Maybe it is just the "packaging" as MFs and ETFs that is more familiar/accessible to many individual investors who might never have dabbled in buying individual bonds.

That's my conclusion. I have no idea why people are afraid to buy individual bonds, especially govvies. There is no reason to pay a manager fee for what is basically a clerical job. A monkey could be trained to select govvies. Maybe that's how the funds do it? Pay in bananas and pocket the fees.