Scalper1 News
Summary I’ve been looking for some medium to high quality fixed income investments. My preferred method of making the investments is buying ETFs. I want something with decent yields, excellent internal diversification, and reasonable or better levels of liquidity. I would accept some credit risk or some duration risk to increase yields, but expense ratios have to be low. SCHZ offers investors an incredibly diversified portfolio of fixed income investments and I may use it from time to time. Since the Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA: SCHZ ) is a Schwab ETF it is eligible for free trading in Schwab accounts. Since I want to be able to use my bond ETF as a place to park cash and earn some yield off of it, I want that free trading to move money in and out. With an expense ratio of only .05% (not a typo), I’m very impressed with this ETF. To be fair, the largest factor in my decision to open accounts with Schwab was the free trading on low fee ETFs. It shouldn’t be surprising that I like several of their funds since I picked them as a brokerage after I glanced at their ETF offerings. The Good The portfolio offers an absolutely remarkable diversification of fixed income investments. Investors are getting exposure to treasury securities, mortgage pass-thru securities, and corporate bonds. There are even small allocations to non-us corporate debt, municipal bonds, and other small sections of the market. For a fixed income investor looking for one stop shopping for a bond ETF, this is probably one of the best options on the market. The average volume is running around 170,000 shares per day which is enough liquidity to avoid any major concerns. The average yield to maturity is running 2.46%. Given the low interest rate environment we are facing at a macroeconomic level, this is pretty reasonable. All fixed income investors would love to see higher yields on their investments, but 2.46% is solid compared to any similar alternatives. The effective maturity is over 7.3 years and the effective duration just over 5.3 years. That level of duration risk is fairly reasonable for matching my risk tolerance. If yields were higher on a macroeconomic level, I would be willing to tolerate more duration risk. The Bad While the portfolio is a strong contender for one stop shopping, as an mREIT analyst I can’t stomach paying NAV for an investment containing MBS. I can acquire my MBS exposure at a substantial discount to NAV, though I must admit that when buying mREITs I am effectively paying a much higher expense ratio. Regardless, when mREITs trade at huge discounts to NAV, I don’t want my portfolio to include any exposure to MBS where I am paying NAV. I expect that within the next few years we will see fair values for MBS take a meaningful hit. I want that expectation priced into my investment. Overall, holding MBS is not a bad thing. If mREITs were trading at a premium to book value, I would happily be buying into an ETF that trades around NAV and holds the same securities. When mREIT share prices and book values align, I’ll be tempted to make SCHZ a portion of my investment portfolio. It is a solid ETF that is hampered only by the fact that investors have the opportunity to buy MBS exposure at a discount to NAV. The category for “Mortgage Pass-Thru” is currently weighted at 28.9% of the portfolio. This comes in second for weightings with U.S. Treasuries over 36%. The third category is U.S. Corporate with a weight just over 21%. Interesting Notes I tend to be a buy and hold investor with the exception of being willing to do some trading in microcap securities when I think a lack of coverage is allowing prices to deviate from intrinsic value. When it comes to a bond ETF, I want to be able to rapidly move money in and out and of the investment so it functions as a cash fund. I find it interesting that the portfolio turnover is 74% for the Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF. Frequently I see high portfolio turnovers with excessively high expense ratios, but here the expense ratio is incredibly low. I don’t mind the portfolio turnover since there is no high expense ratio. My problem is not an issue with frequent trading in an ETF; I simply don’t want to pay for it. If it is free, that is fine with me. Conclusion The Schwab U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF is an exceptional bond fund with a low expense ratio and great internal diversification. The only thing that keeps from selecting it as a fixed income investment is that I’m trying to avoid buying MBS at NAV when I cover mREITs and feel confident that I can select solid mREIT investment options on my own. I want to use the diversified low fee ETFs for everything else. When mREITs see share prices and NAVs align, SCHZ will be a very strong contender for use as a fixed income investment or for parking cash while I wait for other opportunities in equity investing. I feel the market is a little frothy and I’m looking to shift my portfolio to have slightly less risk to a downturn in the equity markets while still making enough money off yields to offset inflation. This ETF does both of those things, so the exposure to MBS is the only reason I’m not using it right now. Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in SCHZ over the next 72 hours. (More…) I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. Additional disclosure: Information in this article represents the opinion of the analyst. All statements are represented as opinions, rather than facts, and should not be construed as advice to buy or sell a security. Ratings of “outperform” and “underperform” reflect the analyst’s estimation of a divergence between the market value for a security and the price that would be appropriate given the potential for risks and returns relative to other securities. The analyst does not know your particular objectives for returns or constraints upon investing. All investors are encouraged to do their own research before making any investment decision. Information is regularly obtained from Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, and SEC Database. If Yahoo, Google, or the SEC database contained faulty or old information it could be incorporated into my analysis. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News