David Jackson

Bond Wars Update: International and Junk

iShares Lehman 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) and SPDR Lehman Long Term Treasury ETF (TLO)


On Oct 11 01:55 PM cma wrote:

> Are there any ultra-long bond ETFs?

Broad US Bond ETFs

Have we missed out any ETFs here? Or any Seeking Alpha articles that are important to understanding them? If so, please leave a comment and let us know!

Why I'm Against Fixed Income ETFs

Excellent article, Richard.

But what about the iShares Lehman Short Treasury Bond Fund (SHV)? Isn't it just a very convenient and cheap way to buy short term Treasury notes that would actually make sense for a lot of people?

Stock Earnings Yields vs. Bond Yields 1/85-3/07

"The fact that the S&P 500's earnings yield is higher than the 10-year Treasury yield suggests that either stocks are undervalued or bonds are overvalued."

Why? Treasuries are a risk-free asset class, whereas stock aren't. There should be a return premium for riskier assets, no?

Replacing Barclays iShares Bond ETFs With Vanguard's New Bond ETFs

Thanks J.D. -- really helpful. How do you assess whether an extra 0.3% income is worth the increased risk of an extra year's duration?
David

Replacing Barclays iShares Bond ETFs With Vanguard's New Bond ETFs

J.D, Thanks for a good article.

According to the info on Barclay's website, SHY has a weighted average maturity of 1.87 years and an average yield to maturity of 4.8%. In the article you said that BSV has a weighted average maturity of 2.7 years and an average yield to maturity of 4.8%.

Do you think the extra risk of the longer average maturity is worth it, given the identical average yields to maturity?

Marvin Appel's One-Decision ETF Portfolio

You wrote: <em>From what I can tell, this mix is not forward looking; it appears to be based on how these assets classes have done in the past. I would not be willing to bet the future of my financial security solely on a strategy that has worked well in the past. The belief in a more proactive approach might be more of a philosophical thing but markets all evolve. I think history is important to understand and incorporate into what is hopefully a forward looking analysis.</em>

Roger, this is the best paragraph you've ever written! You put your finger on the reason to be cautious about back-testing asset classes: the world has changed! The Soviet Union is no more, China is totally different, India is growing rapidly, Turkey might join the EU... So judging emerging markets, for example, based on historical data is exactly that: backward looking.