JEF - Build Your Own Bond Fund 2: Not Too Late To Ladder

2024-07-09 20:45:44 ET

Summary

• The individual bond ladder I created last year beat corporate bond ETFs on total return.
• Keeping average maturity around 5 years, targeting slightly lower credit quality in the BBB range, and buying Financial issues when the sector was out of favor all contributed to performance.
• These attributes still look attractive for a bond ladder today, although sectors now out of favor, like Materials and Real Estate, could be places to search for other bonds.

The Strategy Pays Off

In June 2023, I wrote about the advantages of investing in a ladder of individual bonds compared to fixed income ETFs in the article " Build Your Own Bond Fund: Improve Yields And Certainty With A Bond Ladder ". As a reminder, the ladder consisted of these 11 bonds, one maturing each year from 2023 to 2033:

For further details see: