Baird Advisors is Baird's fixed income asset management division and advisor to the Baird
Bond Funds. The group manages more than $80 billion in taxable and tax-exempt fixed income portfolios including Baird Ultra Short
Bond Fund, Baird Short-Term
Bond Fund, Baird Intermediate
Bond Fund, Baird Aggregate
Bond Fund, Baird Core Plus
Bond Fund, Baird Short-Term Municipal
Bond Fund, Baird Core Intermediate Municipal
Bond Fund, and Baird Quality Intermediate Municipal
Bond Fund.
Bond funds were not dominant as they have been for several weeks.
These
bond funds met or were managed more conservatively than the assigned FCQR.
Typically,
bond funds with low yields have relatively low risk (see the CPA Client Bulletin, March 2018).
Winners of the first CFA Society Philippines Best Managed Funds of the Year Awards were also recognized at the conference: ALFM Peso
Bond Fund, under the
Bond Funds (Medium-Term Peso) category; UB Gold Dollar Fund, for
Bond Funds (Medium-Term Dollar); Odyssey Peso
Bond Fund, for
Bond Funds (Long-Term Peso); CBC Dollar Fund , for
Bond Funds (Long-Term Dollar); SB Peso Asset Variety Fund, for Balanced Funds (Peso); and Philequity Fund, for Equity Funds (Peso).
Plus, although American Funds has been known for its equity products, its
bond funds are taking center stage today: The
Bond Fund of America (ABNDX) and Intermediate
Bond Fund of America (AIBAX) drew $334 million and $213 million, respectively, in April, "indicating that American Funds is joining the battle for investors' fixed-income money," Lamy points out.
The Western Asset Core Plus
Bond Fund's IS share class (WAPSX) received the Lipper award for the three-year period ending December 31, 2015 in the Lipper Core Plus
Bond Funds category.
The fund is designed for investors who seek higher yields with less volatility than short-term
bond funds. The fund's management team will search for investments across a large number of municipal securities that finance different types of projects.
For investors who aren't comfortable buying individual bonds, a similar portfolio can be assembled by buying a combination of short- and intermediate-term high-quality
bond funds.
According to McCabe, in today's market environment, "with six-plus years of significant market gains, now is a really good time to have conservative options in a plan." In addition, the Federal Reserve has indicated it will raise interest rates either as early as this summer or as late as the fall, which will drive down the price of
bond funds, he says.
Investors poured $5.3 billion into
bond funds worldwide in the latest week while pulling profits out of stock funds after market gains in 2013, data from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research report showed on Friday.
