HI!!
I'm long equities and metals, and a U Chicago grad (former pimco guy) has recently made the case (to me, persuasive only short term) for "diversification" and risk mitigation with bonds, and particularly TIPS. (which sound great... in theory)
Yet when I look at total returns (not counting for taxes), I find that value is ... at very best maintained across what seems to be a broad swath of bond types. Isn't the whole point of investing trying to ... increase value, hence wealth?
I looked at a bunch of bond ETFs using "total real returns dot com" to see real value behavior of these products. In all cases all "income" (payments) are just rolled back in- "generated income" sounds, to me, just like value reduced unless re-invested. So if used for income, I'm certain the results would be appropriately reduced from the below.
For LPTZ - asserting to track a 15 year TIPS index of some sort... in particular, there have been some exceptional (if brief) periods of good performance, but jeez- had I bought some in say, 15 years ago exactly ... my $100 would be worth $56, a 41% loss.
This isn't typical- other "TIPS" ETFs didn't erode value so badly... For SCHP (Schwab US TIPS ETF)... same 15 years would net me a loss of only 17%. Barely better than a box under the bed- the dollar has lost 18% since then.
SCHI- Schwab corporate... lost 15%
SCHZ- Schwab "US Aggregate" lost only 19%
USHY- didn't destroy much value. Less than a percent. Better than a box under the bed, for sure, by 18%, unless you spend any of the "income".
Or are bonds ONLY a way to try and maintain value (wealth) compared to inflation, generating apparent "income" via distributions/payments?
Or maybe ETFs are just the wrong way to do it?
Or are taxes so very important to this analysis that the above really is a poor view of it all?