IEF
iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF
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Warsh's first FOMC is tomorrow and I have no clue what to do with my port
History of US equities, t-bills, treasuries, gold, and international returns
History of US equities, t-bills, treasuries, gold, and international returns
History of US equities, t-bills, treasuries, gold, and international returns
Treasury bonds are gaining popularity as today is likely the start of the first interest rate cut this year.
What is your strategy for the Bond ETFs in light of the probable upcoming rate cut?
What is your plan for the Bond ETFs with the upcoming probable rate cut?
What is your plan for the Bond ETFs with the upcoming probable rate cut?
4-asset portfolio that outperforms the market with less risk
Best Investment Without Actually Buying Treasuries? Am I wrong?
2023-05-09 Wrinkle Brain Plays - In the style of a Pirate
Fed's 12-Month Recession Probability Soars To Levels Unseen Since 1982
IEF trades telegraphing reversal in SPY and QQQ
What ETFs should I select for a quantitative simulation?
JEPI (JPMorgan Equity Premium Income ETF ) 10% yield...seems too good to be true.
Fixed duration bond ETFs long run returns and volatility in an era of consistently rising rates like the 1970s
Getting Back at Inflation: Options on Bond Yield Increases
Is there an ETF emulating the "All Weather Portfolio" (See post)?
Anyone just trying to match SPY with minimum drawdowns?
Robinhood cost me 20 dollars by making me buy back very OTM options that were expiring today
Had an interesting test today for my “all-weather” portfolio
$RKT Update post Q2 earnings also how to hedge against higher rates if you invest in $RKT to guard against FUD for long term bulls. (Positions at end)
Playing the yields and inflation. TLT/IEF/TBT and Commodities.
I have written out the three golden rules to avoid taking a bad short position. Avoid the 3 F’s
Mentions
Did similar except I bought IEF...didnt take as big of a hit but it was a terrible buy for me. Thought I would ride out the bond route but at this point I am losing money having it in IEF
I would allocate 50-70% to bonds over stocks right now given concerns about the boom bust cycle entering the bust phase. Then sell 20-30% of your bonds and reinvest in VOO when the market tanks. For bond ETFs, I recommend most in SHY and a bit in IEF, which is trading at low prices compared to history. Yields are looking likely to rise, which means you can buy cheaper bonds now and reap higher interest payments down the road.
Pressure makes diamonds, good song about it: https://youtu.be/N8qlkY-CDJU?si=0xYQrw4VoSMK5IEF
South32: Aluminum was already booming, with demand outpacing supply even before major smelters were disrupted and Gulf shipments were constrained. Compared to oil, far less of this is priced in. Prices are only now returning to prewar levels, despite the recent breakout in aluminum. URNM / URA: The uranium spot price has recently broken out of a downtrend, while global sentiment continues to shift in favor of alternative energy sources over oil. IEF options: Primarily a technical trade, but also supported by a macro backdrop where conservative investors are increasingly seeking safe havens. Yields are unlikely to rise too far given this year’s roughly $10 trillion in debt issuance.
Beyond all the chest-thumping, there are only two numbers that matter. The return on Dow/S&P 500/NASDAQ and the yield on IEF. Taco happens when yield on IEF reaches around 4.5%.
Leveraged positions on the 10 and 30 yrs using IEF and TLT. Averaged in after retests of the huge reversal in October 2023. Could still be wrong, but I'm betting bonds will still hold as a flight to safety instrument. I also don't believe Trump would have hired someone in Warsh who wouldn't push hard for his cut agenda.
I had long dated IEF ITM Call credit spreads in my Robinhood portfolio. I was assigned on the short leg of the spread on January 30th (Friday) and I exercised the long leg or the spread immediately, which closed on Feb 2 (Monday) The ex-dividend date of IEF was Feb 2nd. I was debited on the IEF dividend on Feb 5th. So in the end, I lost additional money from paying the dividend, but should I have been charged on the dividend event?
> Currency risk would be holding onto USD. By switching I took less risk than someone holding US bonds. If you are from the US holding assets with other currencies, that is the currency risk. If you are from another developed country, why would you hold USD bonds as a major component of your portfolio? > The 10yr was basically flat in 2025. It didn't yield anywhere near 11% - I don't know where you got that from. The 10y went down 50bps in 2025 what are you on about? IEF performed at 8% last year and that's with an overall lower duration than a 10y treasury. Again 11% was an awful performance for 2025. Holding Euros in cash would have been better than that, and that's the most common alternative to USD. And that's without taking into account yields and price action because of rates going down.
>[OP thinks SGOV is paying 5%](https://media1.tenor.com/m/rpv72Z5PGCYAAAAC/joks.gif) >in 2026 Yeah. I've been moving out the yield curve to SHY/IEF and even those only pay around 3.5-3.9%. But hey... whatever they want to believe.
VXUS is the standard international diversification. AVUV and AVDV are the small value funds for the US and international developed markets which are less correlated with bigger companies. BND, and IEF are solid bond funds for uncorrelated assets.
If the fed is going to implement a yield curve control you should go long TLT or IEF before it's priced in. (It's getting priced in...)
I had been using SGOV and BIL (just with ever one let me round out my cash). Then I shifted to using BOXX because it's less work and offered more control on how I realized gains. I've slowly been moving out of the curve with sales of BOXX and going into SHY. For the long end. I have IEF for my tax-exempt and TMF for my taxable.
With ambiguous purchase dates, you could assume larger risk, like a slight equity index allocation, maybe longer duration risk like intermediate treasuries rather than tbills, etc. Either way, the two best looking cash-like risk free rate investments are SGOV/CLIP or BOXX, though BOXX's tax treatment has had the spectre of the SEC looking over it, whether its method of avoiding capital gains distributions to make it more tax efficient for you is legal or not. Thats been murmured about for a couple years. For more risk you can use SHY/IEF for short and intermediate treasury bonds, simple index ETFs for stock exposure, you could expand the exposures to something similar to the "Golden Butterfly Portfolio", which is a variation of the "Permanent Portfolio", which diversifies between short and long duration bonds, stocks, and gold to produce a portfolio with lower-than-market max drawdowns but decent returns to preserve and hopefully increase your purchasing power. Depends how flexible your timelines are.
SSO/IEF/GLD if you wanna seem highly regarded
Volatility is still relatively low, but creeping towards mid tier imo. We are still well above historical prices which is bullish for low volatility / decent rise. Money is being made, taco trade is still taco'ing. Normally, you should only hold the portfolio you can stick to, so why are you doubting now? Some signals are flashing red, like junk bonds trending down in value or people taking out short term vix positions to hedge, but other signals are flashing green. Its not rosey cheeks 6% volatility plus strong RSI like a month ago. If youre just investing in the index, id probably say just stay the course. If youre worried about recession, maybe take out some intermediate treasury exposure via IEF or direct purchase of ITTs from treasury direct (or if youre high conviction, LTTs like ZROZ), and if youre worried about stagflation... Wellll you better fight for a raise at work, and maybe learn about managed futures trend ETF offerings like KMLM, CTA, DBMF, AHLT, stuff like that.
Yeah it's time. TLT and IEF both seem like the move. Interesting SHY dip after hours.
SHY = short duration, IEF = mid term, TLT = long term treasury bonds. Depending on your expecting of the yield curve you need to buy puts or calls on the front end or the back end
Start buying SHY, IEF and TLT
$IEF & chill dude, rake in those dividends and relax.
IEF & TLT have lost BIG in last 5 yrs. He wants to Make money I think.
Didn't understand. Pls elabo. If one wants to bet on int rates, something like IEF is better than selling LEAPs
You can create any level of risk by using equities and bonds. Yes someone likely shouldn't be 100% equities in retirement. However 80% equities and 20% bonds might be suitable. So the question is does a high dividend fund have a better risk adjusted return for any reasonable equity/bond allocation and the answer is no. If you aren't getting a better risk adjusted return for a given level of risk you are simply getting less for nothing. Comparing SCHD to VTI and IEF (intermediate treasuries treasuries) in a 60/40, 75/25, 85/15, and 100/0 portfolio https://testfol.io/?s=17hwnLc6ryk SCHD has the worst risk adjusted return. However specifically comparing to 85/15 which is the closest level of risk/volatility SCHD has a WORSE annualized return BUT also a WORSE max drawdown WORSE volatility, and WORSE risk adjusted return. It is just all around worse. If someone can't handle the volatility of 100% VTI then 85/15 is better than SCHD in every possible metric. IF they want even LESS risk (and accepting less return) then every combination of VTI and IEF has better risk adjusted return than SCHD.
I'm sticking with intermediate-term bonds like IEF or GOVT. You still get a nice list when rates fallbut you avoid the insane roller coaster ride of TLT. It feels like a better balance of risk and potential reward for me.
Bonds aren’t an attractive investment right now because the dollar is weakening. Who wants to buy bonds backed by a depreciating asset? TLT has been in the gutter and shows no support right now. IEF has been trading sideways for 3 years, even the IEI is below 2022 levels… if anything risk is on… all these ipos, ETH treasury companies, and even IWM is up 20% since April.
If i have to choose that, I'd pick RSSB and Brk-B RSSB gives you effectively 100/100 VT/IEF exposure (100% global stocks, 100% intermediate duration treasury bond exposure via futures and swaps). Hedges drawdowns, and will have positive carry in a typical rising yield curve environment. Amply diversified in a single ETF that rebalances itself. The stock is BrkB simply because its functionally a private credit exposure. They have a balance sheet of businesses that are privately owned by berkshire like BNSF and Geico and such. Their use of insurance float gives them an effective upper leverage bound if theres ample market opportunities. Berkshire has bee very similar to the market over the last decade and stands as a contrast to the big tech heavy global market cap, despite berkshire riding the Apple wave. They didnt rebound as fast as SPY after lockdown, but they also went up during liberation day while spy went down. If I had to pick one single company, berkshire is basically a private company diversified ETF plus discretionary US beta exposure via big names like coke and apple.
It isnt worth it, because you bring no information thats different from the market. You cant "train to be a trader". Vast majority fail, and those who do are niche super smart algo quants. If you need to catch up to some future spending goal, then unfortunately your only way to dial up compensated risk past 100% is leverage, which comes with costs and danger for an emotional person. For example, instead of being 100% VT, you may need to be like 45% SPUU (2x SPY) / 55% ex-US, for 145% equity exposure, something akin to that. Or utilize short box spreads to buy more stable leveraged instruments like RSSB (100/100 VT/IEF) but 1.5x exposure for 300% exposures to VT and IEF.
I like the concepts in the book Money Master the game: 7 simple steps to financial freedom. Here is the short of it and since you’re young it’s good to hear it early. Smart that you’re thinking on this early as well. Key Features: Balanced risk across inflationary, deflationary, and growth cycles. Low volatility: Backtested to lose less than 4% in worst historical years. Not heavily stock-dependent, which provides psychological stability. Tony Robbins’ “All Seasons” Portfolio Designed to weather any economic climate: U.S. Long-Term Bonds (20–25 yr) 40% U.S. Stocks (S&P 500) 30% Intermediate-Term Bonds (7–10 yr) 15% Gold 7.5% Commodities (broad basket) 7.5% Suggested ETFs (for implementation): • Stocks: VOO or SPY (S&P 500) • Long-Term Bonds: TLT • Intermediate Bonds: IEF • Gold: GLD or IAU • Commodities: DBC or PDBC
IEF did not exist until 2002. While I appreciate a 30 year lookback, that is not feasible if one is using a tradeable instrument where one can use SMAs. As for your crosses, etc., one can get as elaborate and exotic as much as they want. I am just mimicking a strategy that an annuity company started some 15 years ago.
Not quite, the bond ETF is essentially DCA'ing the yield curve. Old bonda roll off as they mature and new bonda at current rates get added on. The net duration exposure can be measured by the "effective duration", this is important because you can buy 20+ yr bonds that have coupons in a fund like TLT, but your effective duration is like 16 years because money gradually gets paid out to the investor. On the flipside, if you bought a fund that buys 20-30yr STRIPS (zero coupon bonds), you get the full duration exposure of the bond maturity, like GOVZ/ZROZ have an effective duration of 27ish yrs, averaging out their 30 yr strips and 20yr and everything inbetween. The ETF closest to what youre looking for is IEF, at 7.05 yrs effective duration. However, as new yields drop, youll be buying new lower yield bonds in IEF, but the existing bonds on IEFs balance sheet will increase in value since they have higher yields. Its all a gradual meshing of old fund contents and new fund contents, thus the "DCA" analogy. Old bonda roll off, new bonda roll in.
Solid. I keep bonds simple—mostly ETFs. Like 70% treasuries (BND or IEF), 30% corporate (LQD). Treasuries for safety, corps for a lil’ extra yield. All intermediate-term—don’t wanna get smoked by rate swings. You mix yours up more or keep it chill too?
**Credit market’s waving the red flag — HYG/IEF broke the trend, risk appetite’s fading fast. Time to stay alert.**
It's probably related to credit. It looks like risk appetite is cooling. Check HYG/IEF. It broke the upward move
Balls deep in VOO, IEF, GLD, & BTC. Coming back in a year to flat port prolly.
It turns out you can buy puts for IEF as far out as 2027, new favorite way to manage my anxiety about US government debt default.
If you wanna talk 10Y we can talk IEF. I am saying the 20Y is over sold, more so than the 30Y at the furthest end of the curve. There is going to be a correction. It broke out. Look at the yields right now. The front half of the curve going up, the back half cooling off, because 5.12 was stupid
TLT is only $1 lower compared to its last low in 2023. IEF amazingly is $3 higher
If you are interested in Treasuries I'd buy the bonds themselves and hold until maturity. You know your return and you pick how long you want to stay in the bonds (duration). Schwab, Fidelity, etc. allow you to buy treasuries either on the secondary market or via new auction. Probably best to watch a few videos specific to your brokerage to understand how it works on a specific brokerage website. If the interest is more general, and you don't want to deep dive, then something like FBND as a Total Bond fund might be worth considering. The duration is about 6 years so expect to hold it that long re-investing the dividends in the fund: [https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/fbnd/portfolio](https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/arcx/fbnd/portfolio) IEF is well known treasury fund with duration of about 7 years. I would not go longer then that (and don't). [https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xnas/ief/portfolio](https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xnas/ief/portfolio) r/bonds for more. Be careful about all the recent talk around TLT -- that's more of a capital gains move with more risk associated with the long duration and not as much a fixed income / stabilize a portfolio play (if that is your intent).
Long-duration bonds have risk, particularly due to the current fiscal situation. You may want to split your allocation between IEF and TLT. Yields may continue to rise, however, if that's the case equities will likely be a lot more volatile while you are paid 4-5% annually to wait for the next recession.
If it hits 6% I'll cum and then buy so much IEF my broker will call to make sure it wasn't a mistake.
Start buying $IEF for long term play. Buy dips.
Some people are getting recession yippy. Bonds (TLT/IEF) are outperforming the SPY/QQQ. Recession defensive stocks (WM, RSG, LMT, KO, DPZ, DG) are all pretty damn green
Looks like some whales are getting a little more defensive. Bonds (TLT/IEF) are outperforming the SPY/QQQ. Recession defensive stocks (WM, RSG, LMT, KO, DPZ, DG) are all greener than SPY while many growth stocks are in the red.
I have around 3m in TLT and IEF. I don't really care to explain my thesis and DD. Yall have made up your mind that the dollar is dead, US is never recovering, and inflation is hitting 230%.
Yes. If you're older, roughly - 20% global stocks (an all in 1 fund or 1/3 each US, developed international, emerging markets) 30% bonds 20% gold 30% trend following funds These are rounded from a risk parity estimate. A more robust, diversified All Weather + international approach. It will have about a 7% annualized volatility. With a Sharpe ratio at 0.5-1, say you get an excess return of 5% + 2% risk free rate = 7% overall nominal return in the long run. In a bad downturn (3 or 4 standard deviation event, rare like 2008), take that average, 7% - 4*7% = 7% -28% = roughly 21%. So much safer than a 50% or 60% drawdown if you have all stocks. So, could do: 20% VT 30% IEF 20% GLDM 30% divided evenly between KMLM, DBMF, CTA. If you want to be more aggressive, I'd recommend the Return Stacked suite of ETFs for all in 1 solutions. Good luck out there!
It does not make sense. High quality bonds are mostly uncorrelated with stocks, not anti-correlates, so they are not a hedge. They are a diversifier though. FBND has the same trailing ten year return as the bonds it holds. Well actually it is an active fund so it may or may not have outperformed based on the managers' trading. It has beaten treasury bonds and bills over the past ten years. https://stockcharts.com/freecharts/perf.php?FBND,BIL,BND,IEF,TLH&p=6
compare IEF and ^TNX on the 5Y chart. They move in opposite directions so if yields rise. the price of IEF falls because bonds are worth less.
right. so if bond prices fall and yields rise then this ETF will print tendies. I’m also buying puts on the regular IEF fund because that’s effectively going short bonds. Both are lotto plays that are betting we see 8-10% rates on the US 10 YR at some point this year or the next 12 months. I can hold the shares.
Buy Jan ‘26 puts on IEF 7-10 yr treasury etf
Let me take these one at a time. These are great questions. 1. Why aren’t buyers jumping on “cheap” treasuries for sweet gains? They are! There’s real buying happening. Just check out the IEF ETF on Yahoo Finance and look at the trading volume over the past week or two. It’s much higher compared to earlier this year. That means price discovery is happening right now. And that’s exactly how yields rise: more sellers than buyers at a given price, so prices drop and yields rise to entice buyers. Are buyers scooping up high yield? Yes. But there are more sellers worried about risk than buyers salivating at high yield. 2. Isn’t an inverted yield curve just a false signal? I actually don’t think of a yield curve inversion as a sign of lost trust in the U.S. in fact I think the opposite. A yield curve inversion happens when investors believe there’s a recession coming and they flee into long-term treasuries for safety. That demand drives down long yields. So ironically, it’s often a sign of FAITH in the long-term safety of U.S. debt — even if people are pessimistic about near-term growth. So it’s kind of expected, albeit irrational, behavior. What I’m worried about right now is kind of the opposite: stock markets are wobbling, but bond yields are rising, not falling. That suggests people aren’t fleeing to long-term treasuries. That’s unusual. It’s like the world is saying, they don’t trust treasuries either. That’s a real problem. 3. Isn’t Chinese infrastructure a waste if their economy is poor anyway? China is a lot more economically powerful than most people give it credit for. It’s the second-largest economy in the world (by GDP) and possibly first by purchasing power. It’s a manufacturing monster. Its manufacturing capacity is bigger than the next nine countries combined. That’s mind boggling if you think about it. And a trade war with the US will hurt China less than Americans think. The U.S. accounts for only ~15% of its exports. The EU and ASEAN combined are double that. The non-US world is 85% of China’s exports. And those countries will be happy to trade with China if the US becomes economically belligerent and unpredictable. In short: a trade war with the U.S. would hurt, but it wouldn’t isolate China. They’re already diversifying trade ties and building infrastructure that helps deepen relationships with other countries. More here if you’re curious: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_China 4. Even if the US is justifiably mad at “Peter”, won’t the rest of the world side with the US? Maybe. But financial trust isn’t about who is right or more aggrieved. It’s about predictability. If the U.S. starts acting erratically by slapping tariffs one day, threatening default the next then lenders start to wonder if they might be on the chopping block tomorrow. And that risk gets priced in. You can be the linchpin of the friend group, but if you blow up and ghost your friends every time you’re mad, eventually they start keeping their distance. Or charging you more when you ask for a favor. There’s no such thing as free geopolitical power. If you want to weaponize your economic position, fine but don’t be surprised when lenders demand a premium for putting up with that risk. There’s no such things as a free lunch, and if you just start taking swings at your creditors they are going to start charging hazard pay.
Yes, but look at the IEF volume chart for the week or so compared to March. Volume is up almost 10x on some days relative to March. And in March equities didn't have the same heebie jeebies (technical term). The issue isn't necessarily bond pricing in a vacuum but bond pricing relative to what equities are doing.
One counterpoint is that the IEF drop was preceded by an equally quick rally and we are now back to the value in early march. And the value was stable today.
I was one of those guys and exited on friday when it began to drop alongside equities. Never a good sign in bonds. Fortunately, I had opened a IEF short which is not doing too bad at the moment.
Usual "I should have gone all in" moment. I'm short IEF (10yr etf) since mid march and sold 3/4 puts today for 87% profits. The move was in fact to double down on the position, but I was sure that eventually rates would go down. At least I'm not Bessent or Nutlick, fucking dumbasses.
I did type it in Google and only got TLT and IEF. I see someone else responded with TMV and TMF so that was additional info picked up as well.
yes. I was holding IEF 105 calls for jan 2026-2027 but I've trimmed quite a bit same with XLF puts, trimmed quite a bit, so much that I'm wondering if maybe I overdid it. This was one of my biggest drawdowns since we hit that 3% correction in December, I waited for a potential bounce(but we ended up returning to ATHs fairly quickly) and started entering deep OTM puts for dirt cheap. So when I saw them up a nice 400% I may have gone overboard harvesting them. Also I reduced last week too on a different strike. I'm hold GME $5 puts for jan 2026 at an average cost of $.11, not much into it, but I figured if it runs again, I can pile into the higher strikes as well and then roll out the positions into 2027. ***IF*** GME pulls the same mass dilution over time that AMC did, these should yield quite well. If not, I'm out under $200. I also hold a few calls at a time with the same intention, very small cost basis, in general lotto/insurance in case it runs -> and then roll out after the price action has broke, I try to identify the odds of risk/reward at that point, often with bots and TA, and if I feel that I'm not chasing I will increase piece by piece, but in general, I don't think I would hold (to wheel) more than 100 GME shares, the premiums are nice but the price action on holding the actual equity is too rich for me I'm mostly cash waiting to start DCA at a fixed rate, so that doesn't mean trying to find bottom. I will take $50 per week, maybe even *per day,* and start putting them into companies that I like again. I think we're probably a far way off from bottom but there's no part of me that is sure about anything, so the vast majority of my account is not participating in the markets until we see some stability.
I really doubt this tariff war impact is going away soon. As for myself I see opportunities in bonds. I even had one bond called putting in high interest fund, Also IEF accidently shot up only briefly sold for gains. Like everyone else I am measuring the changes since Jan 21 when Trump took over. Amost bonds went up while most stocks took a big hit like \~30% losses. One could see some easing but I think bulk of losses is gone for good. May take 2 years or more. The next thing is easing in borrowing. If that happens then we will have more an inflation while borrowin is relatively easy.
Learn how IEF, TLT, TUA, IVOL, etc work and go from there.
My port was already blown and I had some IEF and TLT so I only lost 2% today. For the first time in my life I think I outperformed the market LMAOOO
A common sensible approach is to just use UPRO or SSO to juice your US exposure, and then diversify with alts. Like, RSST gives you 2x by giving you 1:1 SPY/Managed futures, or RSSB, which is 1:1 VT/IEF (essentially), or NTSX gives you 90/60 SPY/IEF. Instead, you can get a way higher volatility contribution from longer duration bonds, which is similar to buying that bond leverage but without the leverage costs. For example, long duration behaves like TYD but without embedded leverage costs. This is by far, in my opinion, the way to go, especially for younger investors. Youth can handle vol, and buying even as much as 2x leverage on raw equities has been shown to be more optimal than unlevered equities in papers like Ayer's and Nalebuffs research on leverage, even in the circumstance that you wipe out in an event like the GFC and start again from zero. I prefer a less crazy approach, and take traditional portfolio construction wisdom and simply add modest leverage to it, slide out on bond duration to the long end, and diversify with managed futures. I get global equity exposure trend following funds, long bonds, and its all great. The three asset classes are uncorrelated to each other, they all have positive real expected returns, and they should help crutch each other when tail events like 2022 (stock and bond simultaneous bear market) occur, or GFC (huge stock bear market butressed by bonds and MF) similar to dot com too,
Absolutely, this is 100% the best way to use LETFs in my opinion. My long term buy and hold (with quarterly rebalancing) portfolio in my IRA is ~1.6x leveraged, using UPRO to get me more exposure to US beta, and the space that opens up in my portfolio lets me buy long term treasury bonds, international equities, and managed futures funds. I love the concept of NTSX/I/E and RSSB, my only gripe is their target duration on their bond futures. They mostly hit durations similar to IEF (~7yr effective duration). I want longer duration, so I do it myself with UPRO, small cap value funds, managed futures funds (CTA, KMLM, etc), and then I use GOVZ and ZROZ (effectively the same thing, ~26yr effective duration STRIPS) for my long term treasury bonds. Rebalance agnostically, ride into the future, hope for the best. That diversification (to managed futures, bonds, and international) has really helped during this 2025 so far.
Consider a large tech allocation to $META, $GOG, and $AMZN right now. All three have cheap valuations versus what they have been guiding to for the next quarter. Plus the stock sell off has gotten too extreme. We had the worst UMICH data I’ve ever seen and we had one of the biggest bounces in years. In the edges, consider $MCHP. A large cap name that trades countercyclical. In the worst of the sell off this name traded flat. For some all weather protection, consider trading $WMT. High p/e but this stock offers the greatest prices in groceries right now. Inflation will drive more consumers here vs other grocery stores. Avoid energy, consumer staples. This have been overbought and will underperform as economic growth is better than most expect. SPY and IEF (10year UST) will be your friend here for diversification benefits. Don’t listen to sheep on this subreddit to do all equities.
Ok, most common advise is Index funds. But that's really 40% Mag7 weighted. Your portfolio, at least what's show, is essentially overweighting Mag7 (AMZN, NFLX, NVDA, TSLA) beyond 40% with your index fund mix. Think about that long and hard. If you are thinking more short term, trade in 401k account so it removes tax implications but captures returns (maybe use simplywall .st or [marketcrunch.ai](http://marketcrunch.ai) for shorter term predictions) Plus, you are not inflation protected (GLD, IEF) or any bond exposure. That's another thing to consider.
I have the habit of comparing my static positions to vti or sometimes vt. I'm down today 0.25 so I don't really feel like I can complain. That makes me up 3.70 ytd. I started changing my holdings a bit after Trump won the election and made more drastic changes after inauguration. I'm extremely glad I did because otherwise I'd be negative. I significantly reduced my tech exposure and went more defensive. For example, SPHD is up 5% ytd. My TLT is over 5% and IEF 3%.
Investing is a spectrum. On one end, you can avoid losing money in nominal terms, so you get yield with zero risk of losing the # of dollars (but long term, you risk losing to inflation). This is the "risk free rate". The european central bank or whatever country youre in will offer sovereign short term debt that will yield an APY related to the central bank's current monetary policy target. In the USA this is between 4-4.25% per year. You cannot lose money this way, its risk free. On the other end of the (normal) spectrum is investing in traditionally risky assets with a stochastic discount rate, such as stocks. Stocks have an "equity risk premium" associated with them, a risk that is undiversifiable and thus commands a higher expected return than the risk free rate. It has to be this way in a rational market because stocks are volatile, they have drawdowns, and since their value in all future times is unknown, then that risk must be compensated with a higher expected return than the government bills which have zero volatility and a 100% known future value. Idk how much houses cost where you live, but 30k Eur probably isnt going to cut it with a 7 yr horizon if investing in risk free assets. Generally, low wealth entities demand higher returns (you) and high wealth entities demand lower, so your risk necessity to fund your future spending goals is much higher than the market average, especially higher than intermediate asset pricers. In this scenario, your portfolio will likely have to look very different from the market average of the universe of investments (stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, etc), and yours will look more like 100% stocks or a high stock allocation with a low bond allocation. If your goal is ~7 yrs away, the best course of action would *likely* be a very high stock allocation with a smaller allocation to intermediate duration government bonds, with the duration matched to your goal. In the USA, this would look like ~80/20 or something like that VTI/IEF (us total market cap weight stocks + 7-10yr government bonds). Government bonds carry a low correlation to stocks normally and a deeply negative correlation during market crashes, so the bonds smooth out your volatility and reduce pain if the market crashes, helping you recover faster. If a crash happens, you could sell all your bonds which have mightily appreciated due to the crash and buy the dip in stocks.
Dividends are just one facet of companies enriching the shareholders. Theres also investment in book assets. Theres share buybacks. Anyone purely focused on dividends is simply a worse investor. Theyre taking the market, excluding a large swath of opportunities by not looking at companies that dont pay a dividend(a lot of information tech, GOATs like Berkshire hathaway which does share buybacks instead of dividends, etc), and thus reducing your future expected returns and increasing risk. Double whammy of sucking at the mission. Buy an index fund. SCHB or something like it. If youre hip to it, slap 20% of international on there. SCHF or something like it. If you want to derisk, add government bonds like IEF or TLT or GOVZ, those are in order of increasing duration. Longer duration commands far more rate risk, so the longer duration, the more volatile. You expect longer duration to more powerfully hedge recessions likee the GFC, while shorter durations provide better risk adjusted returns due to lower volatility.
Short 10YT* all the way 🤑say, IEF; analyze [here](https://marketcrunch.ai/analyze?t=IEF) *not a financial advice
If you're concerned about your portfolio as a whole, even things out by buying TLT, IEF, GLD, DBC. Basically, look into the all weather portfolio. Probably not the best time to be in individual names - if the market crashes, sell some TLT and slowly buy into individual names again
Treasury Sec'y said today there's no plans to raise the amount of bond issuuance this year. More supply would mean lower bond prices. There had been some expectations that issuance would increase. Since it apparently won't, rates are down and prices are up today. Look at the treasury etfs IEI, IEF, TLT, they're all up today. https://www.barrons.com/articles/treasury-refunding-bond-issuance-b685f026
IEF 95-96 Calls or TLT 91-92 Calls March 21. Bond gonna take off soon and all you will need to do is get in, hold for profits > buy more calls further out > repeat till they're in overbought range on weekly/monthly and go do drugs in the meantime so you don't do anything else that's stupid.
TLT, IEI, IEF, GOVT imo. I think funds will rotate money into safe assets, which is what actually causes the correction so if I'm right you can basically long bond ETFs and the moment they top is gonna be exactly when stocks bottom. Since they are just correlated to interest rates it's a case of buy the rumor sell the news. These are all low IV so imo way easier than trying to time it with SPY/VOO puts and the market selling off the day after your puts expired.
TLT, IEF leaps, SPY 21 Feb 610 calls. No way they both lose money right?
$SGOV, $IEF, $BND, $TLT depending on your convexity risk tolerance.
I wrote an article on SA that might interest you. There are a few bond ETFs worth considering. Look at $LMBS, $IEF, $ANGL, and $RAVI.
Long: U.S. TIPs ladder of individual bonds, held to maturity (retirement), to augment Social Security. No other long term bond holdings. BND, FBND, IEF All with duration under 9 years. VEMBX for some emerging market. MINT for very short term.
I've been tinkering with what a 50/50 portfolio should look like, and it shakes out currently like this: 1% IBIT 9%IAU 40%VOO 10%TLT 10%IEF 30%TFLO. Momentum investing for risk assets (the S&P500 is allocated based upon market cap, gold and bitcoin have market caps you can look up), bar belling long bond risk for risk free assets (the risk being interest rates going up). You could swap out the intermediate or long treasuries with TIPS if you prefer.
1% IBIT 9%IAU 40%VOO 10%TLT 10%IEF 30%TFLO as something that would be a near ideal 50/50 portfolio in my opinion. I can explain the logic behind this if you like, it's pretty simple actually. The S&P500 is in order of market cap, gold and bitcoin can be included because you can also look up their market cap, and compare it with the holding% and market cap of the companies in VOO to figure out how much to allocate to each. The treasuries half has a healthy amount of FRNs to offset the duration risk of long and intermediate treasuries ( I suppose you could swap these out for long or intermediate TIPS if you prefer) in case rates go up, because the risk in bonds is rates going up so it sort of [barbells](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/013114/barbell-investment-strategy.asp) the long bonds (which really are quite risky). So momentum investing for risk the risk side, barbelling long bond risk for the risk free side. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient\_frontier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_frontier)
1% IBIT 9%gold 40%VOO 10%TLT 10%IEF 30%TFLO would be an ideal 50/50 portfolio in my opinion.
SGOV dividend is probably about the same as HYSA. I have been slowly moving capital out the duration curve since last year. Every time we get a good rally in yields a move a little more. MM -> SHY -> IEF -> TLT
I have recently rebalanced my holdings to overweight bonds (TLT, IEF, SCHP). I can’t time the market, but I’m planning on a stock correction with lowered interest rates within a year.
I have multiple positions that would benefit from lower yields. I have positions in IEF, TLT, and NLY. IEF and TLT are US debt ETFs, so lower yields mean higher prices, and we're seen a pretty sharp reversal in yields over the last couple of weeks. Likewise, if yields continue their downtrend, that will eventually bring down mortgage rates, which will increase real estate transactions, which benefits NLY.
Starting in the first quarter of 2024, I started rotating some investments into physical silver, gold and platinum. Along with metals, I chucked some cash into the safe deposit box in case things really go tits up. I’ve substantially reduced exposure to stocks and overweighted bonds (TLT, IEF, SCHP). I’m bad at timing the market so I worked on defense positions throughout the year. My assumption is that the Fed will go to zero and start buying bonds to avoid a bank failures. Metals are a hedge in case we have post WW1 inflation, German-style.
Lump sum 70/30 VTI/IEF, draw down the IEF over time into VTI if you want to play it safe. I prefer IEF to BND or the like because I like treasuries as a hedge better than corporate paper, MBS, or CMBS.
I recently shed stock investments and rotated to overweight bonds (TLT, IEF). I’m assuming tariffs and spending cuts are coming…IMO with yield inversion, price increases coupled with cuts, there will be recession and correction.
Yeah, just not true when you look at the data. In 2008, LQD (iShares intermediate term investment grade corporate bond ETF) lost 14% from July 31st to October 31st. So -14% in three months. IEF (iShares intermediate term treasury ETF), during those same three months, lost 0.45%. During COVID, from March 6th to March 20th, LQD lost a staggering 20.5%. IEF lost 1.05%. Interestingly, LQD lost almost as much as SPY (23.05%). You might say “yeah well in both cases, LQD recovered nicely”. But that’s not really the point. The primary reasons for having an allocation to bonds is for portfolio stability (reducing volatility), and for the ability to opportunistically rebalance during periods of market panic. If your bond fund is down 20%, it is not reducing volatility and it’s not giving you the opportunity to rebalance into stocks when they’re down. Treasuries, depending on duration, will be somewhere between flat and up during these periods of market panic. They do reduce volatility, and they do give you the opportunity to use your bond allocation to buy stocks when they’re cheap. So losing the two most important characteristics of bonds and bond funds for 1% additional yield doesn’t really make any sense.
As for bonds, EDV is good because of it's low fees and high duration. Shorter duration, I don't know. I personally like TUA but that's a managed 2-year futures fund. Not what he would probably like. A vanilla IEF isn't bad either.
BOXX seems like a balanced choice for tax efficiency and holding long-term, but TLT/IEF could add speculative growth if you’re okay with rate swings
I manage all my own portfolios and investments so adding value through investment tilt based primarily on economic and market data. Creating a portfolio based on overall risk and then allocating that risk to maximize return with limiting risk. Examples would be tilting more towards US Large Growth rather than International Growth for the last 10 years. Say a TDF has 35% in International I may lower that to 15% and reallocate the other 20% somewhere else. Flip side is at some point when economic signs point to out performance for International I can go 45% or higher. Small cap growth has been hit hard since interest rates have gone higher and been an under allocated portion of portfolios. For bonds it’s allocating to tilts like High Yield and Corporate Treasuries the last few years rather than AGG, BND(X), IEF, TLT etc. There are some active bond funds that generally outperform their peer group and Index and are in the top 10 percentile for the last 1/3/5/10 years. Those consistent funds are ones I like because even with a higher ER the overall return to my clients is usually net 2-3% higher. Back at the end of 2021 when the Fed said they were going to start raising interest rates, I took off duration and small cap growth and reallocated to high yield and value equites. Now I’m not perfect and seeing high yield bonds decrease by 8% in 2022 wasn’t good but it was a lot better than AGG (-13%) and TLT (-31%) or IEF (-15%). Most often I like to pair investments within a portfolio for risk balance. If I add risk high yield then add treasuries for risk free return. That combination might have the same risk but slightly different returns.
Not big on long bonds. Too risky. IEF is long enough: [https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xnas/ief/quote](https://www.morningstar.com/etfs/xnas/ief/quote) (I could not find FNGBX.) See also: [https://www.morningstar.com/columns/rekenthaler-report/bonds-are-still-too-expensive](https://www.morningstar.com/columns/rekenthaler-report/bonds-are-still-too-expensive)
Yeah I was looking at IEF which is 7 - 10 year. I just dont really know what % to do within my 40% for bonds. Like half n half, short term and long term?
I have positions in TLT, IEF, and SHY. I have been slowly moving out the curve a little at a time on each rally in yields.
If I'm going to buy a hundred shares of something, I like to have a warm fuzzy feeling that the shares are going to increase in value. Makes sense, right? You wouldn't buy a stock blindly and just hope it goes up, and you sure wouldn't want it to go down. So don't lose sight of the underlying as you're selling CCs for that juicy premium. I 'get' the SPY/QQQ/IWM recommendations, but buying those is just betting on their historical tendency to rise. What if you looked at some ETF charts and found one or two that were currently going up? Momentum persists, so you buy one of those, and there's a decent chance it continues to go up for a while. Then sell Calls against that at whatever delta or profit target you like. And if the ETF price hits your sold strike, *let it go!* You made max profit on that trade. Re-buy that ETF or find a better one. Look for the XLx family of 'sector' ETFs. And there are some other sector ETFs you can find, like XHB, FXI (if you want to consider China a sector), LQD, IEF, etc.
Government bond ETFs, very liquid. It's where we keep our emergency fund and housing fund. SGOV(0-3 months), VGSH (1-3 years), ISTB (1-5 years), IEF (7-10 years) or even AGG (less sensitive to federal interest rates).
SHY rallied, JNK rallied, even AGG is up a bit IEF, TLT tho? Fucking flat 