Bond funds

The investing world is rushing to cater people who want to make a difference with their money but are unwilling to accept higher volatility or fees.

Data reported by the Investment Company Institute.

Buyers yanked $2.9 billion from the sector in the final days of January, nearly wiping out gains so far this year, data show.

The funds raked in $150 billion in 2019 as investors have gotten more comfortable with how they react across different market environments.

Once a top-performing fund with assets well over double today’s value, Templeton’s flagship bond fund has been diminished by the march of passive investments.

Nearly all of the fixed-income funds held short term debt.

In what was a stellar year for corporates, governments nearly missed the list entirely.

It was the biggest annual leap for strategies focused on corporate or government debt since 2014, boosting assets to more than $800 billion, data show.

Managers of the funds became increasingly involved with private debt last year; boosting their median allocation to 2.9% from 2.1%, data show.

In a business increasingly dominated by inexpensive index funds, the young juggernaut succeeded by actually picking good investments.

Despite the exodus, all of the mutual funds and ETFs on the list posted net gains for the year.

“There’s less performance chasing than you saw in the past, and that’s a positive thing,” an expert says.

Banks are hoping strategies like technology-enabled portfolio trading will help them grab a bigger slice of the shrinking fixed-income pie.

Those that shorted the market suffered “steep losses,” while market-neutral products posted “modest gains.”

Data reported by the Investment Company Institute.

The large number of closures in equities and “other” categories could not be offset by new additions, Index Industry Association research shows.

The SEC’s recently passed ETF modernization rule, which expands choice in the market, “is probably the end of the mutual fund industry.”

Given that almost one-third of leveraged loans are just a downgrade away from triple-C, even a modest slowdown could create a snowball effect of sorts.

The downside for their clients, however, is it may obscure just how much credit risk they’re exposing themselves to.