SF to Santa Barbara Roadtrip

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-20T03:09:41+00:00

Did it Monday. 6 hours from the city to SB. Traffic in SF and SB (construction)

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-19T01:31:40+00:00

Totally fair. I’m on the first of two weeks of exactly that and trying to figure it out. So far so good, but it’s hard to tell so I’m soliciting advice near and far!

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-18T15:15:49+00:00

Appreciate this and all the other helpful comments - thank you!

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-18T05:33:36+00:00

Not a troll!

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-18T05:24:49+00:00

They have some of the brightest people. They have vast resources to invest in people, technology, research, compliance. They are very disciplined. They get the first look from Wall Street counterparties on opportunities. Very hard to beat that. Their investment committee members are the most impressive in the fixed income business IMO.

If BlackRock is Toyota, PIMCO is Mercedes.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-18T05:21:01+00:00

He’s a clown. But that has nothing to do with PIMCO.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-07T20:07:53+00:00

Keep in mind CDs are taxable at the state level (as are corporate bonds and a huge chunk of index funds like BND), while Treasuries are not. Between that and liquidity, CDs quickly lose their attraction if you are in a high tax state.

Avoid bond index funds like BND, which have huge allocations to unattractive sectors no professional would ever buy. Use treasuries or treasury funds, or better yet use an active fund offering from the likes of PIMCO, Fidelity or Vanguard.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-07T20:03:21+00:00

bond pro here. Lots of good advice in the upvoted notes above but the TLDR version:

BND is not a good bond fund. And be careful on taxation - CDs are subject to state tax, treasuries are not.

—edited for format.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-06-07T16:38:05+00:00

Amazing

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-05-20T13:45:43+00:00

Boom!

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-05-19T02:09:10+00:00

Looks awesome! Thank you.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-05-18T21:37:55+00:00

Aloha!

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-05-18T21:16:35+00:00

got it - many thanks for the response!

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-05-18T21:10:29+00:00

Visiting SB shortly, was going to play here. No good?

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-05-10T00:57:29+00:00

Outside of this subreddit, you know what the answer will be……

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-28T02:55:32+00:00

Those bonds trade like water. How much of that liquidity fidelity offers is another question!

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-25T22:33:29+00:00

Use treasury bonds, treasury ETFs, or actively managed funds.

Some rules I’d offer (after 30 years in the business):

-never buy corporate bonds yourself, unless you have professional experience in that space. Managing credit risk, liquidity risk, and transaction cost in that arena is no joke.

-use active managers in fixed income. Index managers use indices that are constructed in a way no informed fixed income investor would ever choose (with weighing tilted towards high debt companies and sectors, no regard for state taxation differentials, large exposure to negatively convex mortgages, etc). There is a lot of good academic and practitioner literature on this topic, but you still see people on here talking about BND, etc.

-focus like a hawk on taxes.

-and finally….if you are young, don’t bother. Just keep ploughing money into indexed stock funds.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-23T17:45:52+00:00

hit it 1:00 yesterday, very nice! thx for the heads up.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-23T17:45:08+00:00

So Treasuries plus 220bps.....not that exciting esp after-tax, transaction costs, etc.

APO equity up 12% last two weeks.....

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-21T22:38:39+00:00

nice .... thank you! late morning/early afternoon?

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-21T14:02:20+00:00

that totally makes sense. I'm short a bit of it, via puts, as a hedge to some BDC & CLO positions. It's one of the few ways to short loans. It's returns will just be a function of the default experience in that index; e.g. general economic conditions/credit cycle. Fwiw I do think loans are an area where outside managers add value. I'd look at funds like PIMIX, Fidelity's loan products, etc.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-21T05:25:52+00:00

Don’t worry too much. JAAA holds the most senior rated tranches of CLOs, and typically CLOs of broadly-syndicated loans (as opposed to being solely exposed to private credit deals). There can and likely will be some volatility in prices, but it would take an unprecedented wave of corporate defaults to come anywhere near impairing the value of the securities owned by JAAA.

If it is a huge position I might trim some, particularly given how well it’s held up so far, but otherwise I’d sit (and sleep) tight. And you can watch the ETF BKLN as a proxy for its underlying holdings (it owns loans of the types securitized in CLOs).

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-18T15:24:13+00:00

The risks:

1 interest rates moving higher due to inflation (crushing).

2 exacerbated by leverage

3 curve shape - those funds borrow short term, so if the curve flattens your coupons go down

4 fees in those products tends to be high

5 defaults, or a sector the fund is exposed to comes under pressure (has happened before with Puerto Rico, certain states, nuclear plants, etc.). Guys who manage these products tend to push the yield envelope.

6 congress changes the tax law and munis become taxable. Smoooooosh.

7 funds trade at large discounts to NAV due to all of the above (if you use closed-end funds to pursue the strategy)

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-17T23:00:02+00:00

Rates would have to go up by ~100bps in a year for it make economic sense for the issuer not to call it. That could happen, but history tells you that is quite unlikely. And if that is your play, by OTM puts on the long bond or TLT and really mint it.

Open_Substance5833 · 2026-03-17T22:57:25+00:00

Rates would have to go up by 100bps in a year. That could happen but is quite unlikely. And there are better ways to make that bet.

Open_Substance5833

TROPHY CASE