What would you do with this IRA allocation? Specifically regarding bond funds.

I have a question about comparing two bonds, to decide which to buy. I assume that the correct choice is to buy the bond that has the lower coupon, lowest Price and the highest Yield to Worst?
 
I simply filter for the duration I want, and pick the highest yield to maturity. But I'm just using treasuries & CDs under two years at this point. I looked at agency bonds but I don't want the hassle of the bond being called. Others surely have more knowledge here.
 
I simply filter for the duration I want, and pick the highest yield to maturity. But I'm just using treasuries & CDs under two years at this point. I looked at agency bonds but I don't want the hassle of the bond being called. Others surely have more knowledge here.
You can buy non-callable agency bonds. I have several. I always include call status in my filtering.
 
Yes, but then the yields are about the same as treasuries the last time I looked. I was also going for shorter terms. In a couple weeks I have several rungs maturing and the yield curve is going back to "normal" so I have to decide on a maturity.
 
I have a question about comparing two bonds, to decide which to buy. I assume that the correct choice is to buy the bond that has the lower coupon, lowest Price and the highest Yield to Worst?

My guess is that the Yield to Worst lets you compare for the best regardless of the price and coupon, and would be the way to choose if you are planning to hold to maturity and do not need the income sooner than maturity. If you want to enjoy the income before maturity then the highest coupon would be important.

I hope I'm right because I've been trying for the past year+ to buy actual bonds (having sold a fund that had a lot of sad long duration bond funds inside of it and was performing totally sucky), and I've been choosing highest coupon because I'm not planning to sell before maturity. I must say though, that when I look at my bonds they are all in the red now, even tho at the time they were good buys and still paying nice income.

I'm assuming you are limiting yourself to Treasuries or other AAA rated bonds.
 
Too many funds! And my guess is if you dive down into the holdings of each, you may find a lot of duplication.
 
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