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Why Bond Ladders Are Broken

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Bond ladders have been a popular way to invest in bonds, but they have many drawbacks. This fixed income blog post discusses the key bond ladder disadvantages and why we believe an active investment strategy can increase income and total returns and reduce investment risk.

Four key bond ladder strategy disadvantages include the following:

Four Bond Ladder Disadvantages

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They make a bond's maturity date the primary investment criterion

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They take capital appreciation off the table and limit a bond's return to its purchase date yield to maturity

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Bond ladders can increase default risk, as they are largely a 'set it and forget' strategy that lacks regular investment monitoring

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Bond ladders increase investors' timing risk by putting a significant amount of capital to work at once and reinvesting based on maturity dates rather than market fundamentals

COVID-19 Crisis Shows Bond Ladder Strategy Disadvantages

The fall in many corporate bond prices in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020 illustrates a key bond ladder strategy disadvantage. If an investor built a bond ladder between September 2019 and February 2020, he would have invested when bond prices were very high and bond yields were low. In addition, since he likely put a good chunk of money into this newly built bond ladder, he didn't have any money left to take advantage when corporate bond prices fell in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis. 


Bondsavvy's investment strategy focuses on maximizing income and total return. Being able to lock in higher yields when bond prices fall is a big part of maximizing investment returns.


Breaking Of Bond Ladder

Many of the corporate bond investment opportunities available in March 2020 had never been seen before. Some Apple bonds even fell 30 points before quickly recovering. Investors using our active approach to bond investing can take advantage of the market when prices fall, but bond ladders cannot. We discuss how bond ladders attempt to time the market later in this fixed income blog post.

Bondsavvy's focus is corporate bonds, and corporate bonds are the focus of this post; however, many of the same concepts can be applied to investing in municipal bonds and Treasury bonds. That said, out of municipal, Treasury, and corporate bonds, we believe corporate bonds are best suited to active investing.

Bond Ladder Example

So how do bond ladders work? It starts with the assumption that the best way to select bonds is based primarily on a bond's maturity date: not the value of the bond relative to comparable bonds, the prospects of the issuer, or whether the bond's price can increase. Builders of bond ladders disregard this analysis and, instead, focus on maturity date. 

So here's how bond ladders work:

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In Figure 1, an investor buys $100,000 face value of bonds (100 bonds) and creates a laddered bond portfolio, where the bonds in the portfolio mature at different dates. In the below example, the investor buys 30 bonds that mature in 2023, 40 bonds that mature in 2026, and 30 bonds maturing in 2028. When the bonds on each bond ladder rung mature, the investor will then buy more bonds at different bond maturity dates.

Figure 1: Bond Ladder Example (Green = Buys; Orange = Bonds Maturing)

Bond Ladder Strategy

Bond Ladder Strategy Disadvantages

The bond ladder strategy has many disadvantages, which we will discuss in turn. We also later discuss active bond investing, which we believe is a better alternative to building laddered bond portfolios.

Bond Ladders Seek To Time the Market

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Investors building bond ladders typically invest a significant portion of money when they build a new bond ladder. When investors do this, they are effectively trying to time the market since they are anointing the day they create the bond ladder as the best time to invest in bonds. 

The problem with this approach is that bond prices within an investment portfolio will move up and down over time. For example, investment-grade bonds are generally more sensitive to changes in interest rates while high-yield bonds are more dependent on the creditworthiness of the issuer and the corporate bond's credit spread. Interest rates and the credit quality of specific issuers do not move in lock step, so investing all at once precludes investors from taking advantage of situations when buying opportunities arise.

Bond Maturity Dates Are a Bond Ladder's Primary Investment Criterion

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In a comprehensive investment analysis, a bond's maturity date is one of many factors we evaluate. In the bond ladder, however, it is the primary investment criterion. 

In the Figure 1 bond ladder example, the first rung on the bond ladder is 2023. As a result, when this bond ladder was built, finding bonds that matured in this specific year was the most important goal. The problem with this approach is: who's to say that a bond maturing in 2023 is a better investment than a bond maturing in 2024 or 2030? 

Bond laddering takes key considerations such as the company's recent and projected financial performance, the price of the bond relative to par value, and the yield of the bond relative to other comparable bonds out of the investing equation. We consider all of these factors plus a bond's maturity date when making corporate bond investment recommendations for BondSavvy subscribers.

In short, bond laddering places a rigid investment methodology ahead of a bond's true investment rationale.

Bond Ladders Cap Investment Returns at a Bond's Yield to Maturity

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Investors have been led to believe that they should always hold bonds to maturity. The problem with this is that it assumes that bond prices are static and only move on a straight line to par value at maturity. This assumption couldn't be further from the truth, as corporate bond prices are always moving. 

Since bond ladder investors always hold bonds to maturity, they can never achieve a return higher than a bond's yield to maturity. In some cases, since bond ladders are typically created without regard to a bond's price, they could achieve a return lower than the yield to maturity if the ladder invests in a bond priced at a premium to par value and the bond is called prior to maturity.

We show later in this fixed income blog post how selling bonds before maturity can achieve returns higher than a bond's yield to maturity.

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Buying in at a good price when investing in bonds is just as important as it is when investing in stocks, as achieving capital appreciation is a key part of maximizing total returns and ensuring tax efficiency. While many investors may hold bond investments in an IRA account, for those holding bonds in a taxable investment account, $1 of capital appreciation is worth substantially more than $1 of interest income due to the more-favorable tax treatment of long-term capital gains in the United States. 

To maximize capital appreciation, we need to invest opportunistically as bonds priced at compelling values present themselves in the market. This doesn't happen all at once and on the same day, which is why the bond ladder 'big bang' approach does not enable investors to maximize capital appreciation and total returns. Further, since bond ladders favor interest income over capital appreciation, they can limit the tax efficiency of an investor's portfolio.

Bond Ladder Investors Have Higher Default Risk

We believe a bond ladder strategy is a complacent investing approach where the bond ladder owner effectively 'sets it and forgets it' and puts his head in the sand. This can be a risky approach to bond investing, as events will happen over time that impact a bond's price and rationale for continuing to hold a bond. 

Bond defaults typically don't occur overnight, but it's important for investors to regularly monitor the performance of bonds in their portfolios as well as the performance of the issuing companies. This is a service BondSavvy provides its investment newsletter subscribers, as we monitor all previously recommended bonds to understand if a company's credit quality has changed and whether subscribers should buy more of a previously recommended bond, hold, or sell. 

We provide these updates on quarterly subscriber webcasts and, more frequently, by email.  We believe this disciplined approach helps increase investment returns and reduces a bond investor's default risk.

Figure 1a: Bond Ladder Example

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In addition, since a bond ladder strategy typically doesn't include financial analysis on the issuing company, it's difficult for the investor to assess the risk-reward opportunity of each bond investment. Bond ladder investors don't look under the hood, which is another reason why they can have higher default risk. 

Many investors rely on bond ratings; however, thousands of companies have the same bond rating, and ratings often don't change for years. Bond ratings do not speak to the value of the investment or whether a specific bond has the opportunity to outperform the market. Further, corporate bond ratings methodologies are flawed and often favor companies with worse credit metrics due to their size and revenue diversification, as we discuss in this blog post.

Since founding BondSavvy, we have been showing investors how they can achieve higher investment returns by owning a select portfolio of individual corporate bonds rather than bond funds and bond ETFs. We have also shown the many other advantages of owning individual bonds vs. bond funds.

But, if we are saying a bond ladder strategy is weak, then what's a better way?

Active Investing for Bonds: An Alternative to the Bond Ladder Strategy

Active bond investing begins with three key principles: 1) new fixed income investment opportunities present themselves over time, 2) selling bonds before maturity can help increase returns, and 3) investment positions should be increased or decreased over time depending on changes in bond prices and a company's financial performance. Here's how it works:

Figure 2 shows an illustrative example of active corporate bond investing, which is markedly different from the bond ladder example shown above. With active bond investing, we make investments as opportunities present themselves over time (shown in green). We may then add to previous positions in the case of a bond falling in price but the issuer's credit quality either remaining the same or improving. 

In addition, we look to sell bonds before maturity (shown in orange) to maximize capital appreciation and total returns. Please read our blog post on how we decide when to sell bonds.

Figure 2: Illustrative Example of Active Bond Investing

Active Fixed Income Investing

Figure 2 presents an illustrative example of active bond investing, but how does it work in real life and what investment returns can this bond investing strategy achieve?

Active Investing for Bonds: Case Study

There are a finite number of compelling US bond market investment opportunities. As a result, we don't believe in churning through investments by rapidly buying and selling. Rather, we seek to maximize the return of each bond investment we recommend over as long of a time period as possible. This investment time horizon is typically one to four years.

Figure 3 shows the performance of two investments BondSavvy founder Steve Shaw made prior to founding BondSavvy, which included Apple 3.85% 5/4/2043 (CUSIP 037833AL4) and Cablevision 5.875% 9/15/2022 (CUSIP 12686CBB4).  Please view our corporate bond returns page to see the investment returns for current and past BondSavvy investment recommendations. 

The below examples highlight two key points:

1) How important it is to invest in bonds at a good price; and

2) How selling bonds before maturity can achieve returns that exceed a bond's yield to maturity

For the Apple 3.85% '43 bond, Steve bought the bonds at 85.07 on October 28, 2013 and then sold the bonds at 95.32 on May 9, 2018. With over 10 points of capital appreciation gained over a 4.5-year period, the investment achieved an annualized rate of return of 6.4% compared to the quoted yield to maturity of 4.8%. The 6.4% return is extremely compelling given the high credit quality of Apple. Arguably, Steve should have sold the bonds during 2016 at a higher price and an even higher return: lesson learned.

Steve bought the Cablevision 5.875% '22 bonds on December 8, 2015 at a price of 79.25. The bonds had fallen drastically in mid-September as the result of Altice announcing its proposed acquisition of the company, which raised concerns around the company's debt load. When he did his financial analysis, however, Steve saw a compelling risk-reward opportunity. 

Over time, the bonds performed well, increasing approximately 20 points and achieving an annualized investment return of 17.6% when Steve sold the bonds January 9, 2018 at 99.12. (Read our blog post on how we decide when to sell corporate bonds.)

We show the performance of the Apple and Cablevision investments in Figure 3.  This article was written early in the history of BondSavvy, which is why we used an example from prior to the company's founding.  Please click to view the investment returns generated by BondSavvy's corporate bond investment recommendations.


Figure 3: Steve Shaw's Investments in Apple and Cablevision Corporate Bonds

Sell Bonds Prior To Maturity

Source: FINRA market data


Achieving investment returns higher than a bond's yield to maturity is key to growing your investment portfolio. Plug numbers into any retirement calculator, and you'll see the difference several percentage points can make to your retirement planning and investment portfolio.

Bond Laddering vs. Active Bond Investing

The name of the game in investing is maximizing returns for the level of risk one takes. Active bond investors can outperform laddered bond portfolios since they can buy at compelling prices and sell bonds before maturity when a bond's capital appreciation has been maximized. 

In addition, active investors carefully consider all of the merits of a bond investment before investing, as shown in Figure 4. This not only helps increase investment returns but can lower default risk since the active investor is more familiar with the business of the issuing company and how its creditworthiness could improve or worsen over time.

Figure 4: Comparing Bond Ladders to Active Bond Investing

Attribute Bond Ladder Strategy Active Bond Investing
Investment Criteria - Maturity date
- Yield to maturity
- Company's recent and expected financial performance
- Pricing of the bond relative to comparable bonds
- Interest-rate environment and whether a bond is sensitive or not sensitive to interest rates
- Bond's maturity date
- Upcoming maturities of other bonds issued by same company
- Relative seniority of the bond in company's capital structure
- Thresholds of credit rating upgrade or downgrade and likelihood of either
- Headroom under financial covenants
- Issuance size and trading activity

Return Opportunity Capped at yield to maturity Maximize capital appreciation and sell bonds before maturity to achieve returns higher than a bond's YTM

Initial Investment Size Big Bang - Buy all at once - Invest portions of amount allocated to corporate bonds over time as opportunities arise.
- Increase or decrease holdings of particular bonds based on bond-price and issuing-company performance

Investment Holding Periods Always until maturity Typically, one to four years, but can be longer. Goal is to maximize a bond's return over as
long a time period as possible.

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