Bondholders Plans

[lawman]

I recently sold my bond fund and have spent the last week picking up 3-4 month treasuries, corporate bonds, muni's and c.d.'s.. My preference is to avoid bond funds and ETF's in the future but I'm not sure about what I do want to do. I'm not real comfortable buying longer term corporates. I worry about defaults. That's what attracted me to funds years ago. For those bond investors; what are you doing, what are your plans and what are you waiting for?

 

[aja8888]

..........and what are you waiting for?

More FED rate hikes and to be ready around the end of the year to buy bonds with higher yields at discount. In the interim, I am buying 2 and 3 month T Bills to generate a bit of cash.

I am also playing golf weekly and having fun.

Oh, to add....watching my energy and pipeline stocks go up.

 

[COcheesehead]

No guessing for me, just staying true to my ladder. If you follow a ladder strategy it hedges for interest rate risk.

 

[GravitySucks]

Went to shorter duration funds about 4 years ago.
Let my AA drift up from 60/40 to almost 70/30 (Mister Market dragged back down a bit.) over the last year or so.
Been buying 1 to 3 year corporates for the last 3 years instead of adding to bond funds.
Sold a bit for this and next year's living expenses.
Probably just going to sit on my hands for now.

 

[lawman]

I really got burned on my intermediate corp. bond fund. I knew rising rates would cause share price to go down.I just didn't think it would be so severe and so fast..

 

[jazz4cash]

What is your asset allocation and time horizon?
I don’t have enough with a single issuer to worry about defaults and I avoid B rated issues. Not alot out there right now but I’m waiting for an opportunity that I believe to be around the corner.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

I cannot recall from your many threads exploring bond strategies if you wanted a ladder or not. If you want the "ladderability" feature of individual corporate issues, and the diversification of funds, you could use Ivesco Bullet Shares or Blackrock's iShares iBond ETFs. (The latter not to be confused with Treasury I-Bonds.)

 

[lawman]

I cannot recall from your many threads exploring bond strategies if you wanted a ladder or not. If you want the "ladderability" feature of individual corporate issues, and the diversification of funds, you could use Ivesco Bullet Shares or Blackrock's iShares iBond ETFs. (The latter not to be confused with Treasury I-Bonds.)

Not interested in ladders but will vary maturity dates where I see acceptable returns.. What I'm trying to avoid is a crashing share price that can happen with funds.

 

[COcheesehead]

Not interested in ladders but will vary maturity dates where I see acceptable returns.. What I'm trying to avoid is a crashing share price that can happen with funds.

If you buy an individual bond, it will return to par at maturity - its original value. Funds have no par.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I recently sold my bond fund and have spent the last week picking up 3-4 month treasuries, corporate bonds, muni's and c.d.'s.. My preference is to avoid bond funds and ETF's in the future but I'm not sure about what I do want to do. I'm not real comfortable buying longer term corporates. I worry about defaults. That's what attracted me to funds years ago. For those bond investors; what are you doing, what are your plans and what are you waiting for?

I sold all our bond funds early in the year and put the money into short term Treasuries waiting for rates to climb and prices to level off. Right now I have mostly stable value, a TIPS ladder and the short term treasuries for fixed income. We will start buying more TIPS at auction again soon as the real yields go up.

 

[Montecfo]

Treasuries and floating rate funds at the moment.

In better times I see BOND funds as having a decent value proposition. But now the just make little sense due to duration, IMHO.

 

[jazz4cash]

Not interested in ladders but will vary maturity dates where I see acceptable returns.. What I'm trying to avoid is a crashing share price that can happen with funds.

The individual bond prices will follow interest rates just as bond funds do, but if you hold to maturity bond will return to par. Bond funds don't have a maturity date. If you cannot ignore the crashing share price, individual bonds might not work for you either.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

Not interested in ladders but will vary maturity dates where I see acceptable returns.. What I'm trying to avoid is a crashing share price that can happen with funds.

Okay, maybe I should not have specified these in terms of ladders. How about "funds with a specific, defined maturity date"?