Thank you to all who attended and supported Crane's Money Fund Symposium last week in Minneapolis! (We had a record 502 attendees.) The conference binder, recordings and Powerpoints are now available to attendees and to Crane Data Subscribers at the bottom of our "Content" page. Watch for excerpts and coverage of the sessions in coming days on www.cranedata.com and in the July issue of our Money Fund Intelligence newsletter. Our next event is European Money Fund Symposium, Sept 17-18 in Dublin, our next "basic training" Money Fund University is Jan. 19-20 in Boston. Next year's Money Fund Symposium will be in Philadelphia, June 22-24, 2016. Also, in today's "News," we excerpt from our latest Bond Fund Intelligence, Crane Data's new publication focusing on the bond fund and conservative ultra-short bond fund marketplace. (Contact us to see the latest issue and our BFI XLS "complement" or to subscribe. BFI is $500 a year, or $1K including BFI XLS.)
The June issue of our new Bond Fund Intelligence newsletter features a profile of Gregory Nassour, Senior Portfolio Manager at Vanguard Investments. Nassour manages the new Vanguard Ultra Short Term Bond Fund, which launched earlier this year. Nassour tells us about the important gap that this new fund fills in the Vanguard lineup and why the space between money market funds and short term bond funds is so critical for investors in this market. As Nassour says, it's all about giving investors choices. Below, we reprint our latest BFI interview.
BFI: How long have you managed funds? Nassour: I've been with Vanguard since 1992 and I've been within the fixed income group since 1994. I'm principal and senior portfolio manager within the group. I co-head all of our actively managed investment grade corporate bond portfolios. I'm portfolio manager on the Ultra Short Term Bond Fund (along with David Van Ommeren), the Short Term Investment Grade Portfolio, the Intermediate Term Investment Grade Portfolio, and the Long Term Investment Grade Portfolio.
BFI: How have Vanguard's short term products evolved? Nassour: The oldest one we have is our Short Term Tax Exempt Portfolio which started back in 1977. On the taxable side, the Short Term Investment Grade portfolio started in October of 1982. When you look at the whole gamut, Vanguard runs a lot of short term bond portfolios. We have a Short Treasury, a Short TIPs, a Short Term Federal Portfolio, Short Term Investment Grade, a Short Term Government Bond Index Fund, a Short Index Fund, a Short Corporate Index Portfolio, and a Limited Tax Exempt Fund.
BFI: So the new Ultra Short Term Bond Fund fills a gap in the lineup? Nassour: Exactly. We have an equivalent short term tax exempt portfolio, but we did not have one on the taxable side. So this is basically to fill out our fund lineup. Our Short Term Investment Grade portfolio is right around two and a half years duration. If investors wanted to go shorter, they had to go to our money market portfolios, so we wanted to fill that gap. The Ultra Short Term Bond Fund has a one year duration and that's going to be its home. The biggest challenge right now in this space is yield; hopefully this will be short lived. It's important to point out that it's not a money fund. It has a variable rate NAV, so if rates go up, prices will go down on this particular bond fund. We've made it very clear, not only on all of the PR that we did, but to all of our clients who are considering the product that this is an extension of our bond fund lineup.
BFI: How has the fund been received? Nassour: One of the neat things about this portfolio launch has been its consistency. This fund is just under $230 million in assets right now and the cash flow has been very consistent. Overall, Vanguard is great at keeping hot money out of the portfolios. We have policies in place to make sure that doesn't happen so that we can protect the current fund holders. That's a true benefit of the portfolios here; money tends to be sticky. That's great from the shareholder standpoint and it helps us manage the portfolio much better.
BFI: What is the investment strategy? Nassour: About 25% of the portfolio will look similar to the securities we would hold in a money fund. The rest of the portfolio has around 25% in corporate bonds, 25% to 30% in asset backed securities -- mostly high quality AAA auto loans and credit cards. There will be a small amount of CMBS, mostly the triple-A enhanced tranches. So the portfolio is very conservative. It has 10% Agency bullets and about 10% Treasuries. Yes, it has some money market securities in it, but I look at it as more closely related to the Short Term Investment Grade Portfolio -- just a little bit more conservative. We know that investors want a little more yield than money market funds because money market funds are not yielding anything. At the same time they're not in a longer duration portfolio where they're worried about a rate rise.
BFI: Are there concentration limits or diversification requirements? Nassour: We are going to keep this portfolio right around the one year duration. One of the hallmarks of Vanguard is, we give you exactly what the fund says it is going to be. For example, a long term investment grade fund is never going to become an intermediate fund because rates are going to rise, the inter-mediate funds are not going to shorten up to where it becomes a short term fund, and on down the line. This fund is going to be right around one year duration. It will give shareholders some decent current income. Right now the SEC 30-day yield is 65 basis points yield to maturity. The duration is not going to fluctuate too much up or down from that one year.
We offer enough funds that we give the investors the ability to choose what they want. If you want a Treasury fund, we have short, intermediate, and long Treasury funds. If you want an investment grade fund we have short, intermediate, and long investment grade funds. We give investors choices and we stay exactly within what the portfolio says it's going to be. In terms of concentration limits, all of our investment portfolios are highly diversified. If it is a lower quality security like a triple-B, we wouldn't own more than 25 basis points exposure in the portfolio. If it's single-A, we might hold up to 50 basis points in the security, and at AAA obviously we can hold more.
BFI: Can you invest in any junk or any below investment grade? Nassour: All of our investment grade portfolios have the ability to go up to 5% in high yield securities -- this way, in case securities get downgraded by the rating agencies we're not forced sellers and we can sell when the time is right. But we do not plan on investing in the high yield sector as a strategy in [this fund] at this time. Even in our Short Term Investment Grade Portfolio we're only around 1.25% of high yield exposure. But in this fund it is currently zero.
BFI: What types of investors are using it? Nassour: We've been looking at the behavior of our investors, and we have found a lot of investors moved out of money market funds and into this particular fund. I think that's just a yield play. Yields are so low in the money market space that they wanted to get a little bit more out of their money so they moved into this fund. And that's what we thought would happen. Certainly some investors moved down from short term investment grade into this fund just to get a little bit shorter duration in case rate rises. From a shareholder perspective, if they have a long term investment plan and they're dollar cost averaging into the funds, then yes, when interest rates go up, bond fund prices will go down. But as you continue to buy, you'll be buying at yields that will be higher and higher in the portfolio and you'll be buying the fund at a slightly lower price.
BFI: What is your outlook for rates? Nassour: We believe the Fed is going to move, probably in 2015, in a more gradual pace, so we don't think it's going to be a real shock to the portfolio. We don't think it's going to be a straight line -- they'll probably pause along the way to take a look at how the economy is performing. I think this fund will actually fare pretty well in that sort of environment. As rates slowly begin to rise, we'll be able to invest in product that will have a slightly higher yield and because it will be slow, it'll be able to absorb the rate hike. What investors need right now is yield. They're not making anything on money funds, short term yields are still not exceptional, and everyone can do with a little bit more income.
BFI: Are there any lessons to be learned from past rate hike cycles, like 1994? Nassour: I think the Fed learned a lot during that period. If you get behind the curve, then you wind up with a 1994 scenario where you're just jumping too quickly, in fifty basis point increments. They don't want to do that, but they also don't want to go too slow either. We're in an economy now where inflation is not rearing its ugly head. We're not getting macro-economic data that is fantastic; we're just muddling through. The Fed is very aware of that environment, so I do believe they're keeping that front and center in terms of how they're going to proceed with the rate rise. It will be painful on the way up, but when rates normalize, it's definitely a longer term positive for investors. Investors are really feeling the pain of low yields, especially those who are either nearing retirement or in retirement. From that standpoint, a higher rate environment will certainly be better.
BFI: What is the future of ultra short bond funds in general? Nassour: One of the lessons that a lot of investors learned, especially during the crisis, is the importance of having a balanced portfolio -- money funds, bond funds, equities. So bond funds are going to be very important. In terms of the future of ultra short term bond funds, they're going to have a place because investors have different needs for their allocations.
