With few corporate bonds being traded these days, fixed income mutual fund managers are having a very hard time running their funds, The Wall Street Journal reports.
With the market so illiquid, and the spreads so wide, some managers are turning to new issues, which tend to be higher priced than the discounted bonds on the market. Other portfolio managers are afraid to buy bonds if they wont be able to offload them.
Its been a very unusual experience, said Gus Sauter, chief investment officer at
This is posing big problems for Vanguard, which has seen strong inflows into its bond funds but cant invest the money, Sauter said. We had to trade all day long [to get fully invested]. Its been very difficult to spend the cash our funds had coming in.
The brokerages have become incredibly risk-averse and capital-drained, said Bob Persons, co-manager of the MFS Bond Fund. Theyve changed from being proprietary trading desks to being much more like traditional brokers, taking orders and finding sellers.
