It’s gratifying to see the Wall Street Journal catch up with advice I have given to my Dividend Hunter subscribers for several years.
They’ve finally discovered how to eliminate the main problem with investing in bond funds.
They’re late to the party, though – I’ve been telling my readers that for ages.
I’m talking about defined maturity bond ETFs, as long-time readers may have guessed.
A recent Wall Street Journal article, “These Funds Offer a Way to Lock In High Bond Yields,” highlights the benefits of what they labeled as “defined maturity bond funds.”
This type of fund owns bonds that all mature near a specific date, typically by the end of the target year. This structure contrasts traditional bond funds, which continuously trade bonds to maintain a specific average maturity.
If you buy an investment bond, which could be a Treasury bond, a municipal bond, or a corporate bond, you will earn the yield to maturity in effect at the time of purchase if you hold the bond until it matures.
Bond prices adjust for changing interest rates by moving in the opposite direction of rates—so when interest rates go up, bond prices go down. However, if you hold a bond until it matures, you will earn the positive return you signed up for when you bought it.
With interest rates increasing, traditional bond funds—either ETFs or mutual funds—have posted negative returns for three consecutive years. If you instead invested in a defined maturity ETF that matures in 2023, you would have a positive return when the fund redeems in December.
On March 10, 2022, I purchased the Invesco BulletShares 2023 Corporate Bond ETF (BSCN) shares. Interest rates were lower then, and the fund will produce a 3% average return.
Currently, yields on these funds are…
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