An ETF that we have previously not covered in spite of much fanfare in the ETF media is TOTL (SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF, Expense Ratio 0.55%), managed by the extremely well-known bond maven Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Funds.
The fund at its current size has about $172 million in assets under management after several weeks of trading (inception date was 2/23/15), and it takes on several ETF giants in the “Total Bond Market” category like BND
(Vanguard Total Bond Market, Expense Ratio 0.08%) and AGG (iShares Core Total U.S. Bond Market, Expense Ratio 0.08%) which have a massive $25.7 and $23.3 billion respectively at the moment.
According to fund literature, TOTL “Combines traditional and non-traditional fixed income asset classes with the goal of maximizing total return over a full market cycle through active sector allocation and security selection” while seeking “to outperform the benchmark, in part by exploiting mispriced areas of the bond market while also including asset classes not included in the index such as high yield bonds and emerging markets debt.”
The fund also has an interesting tagline that refers to“ ‘DoubleLine’s mandate that “managers not cross the double line into the oncoming lane of risk,’ TOTL seeks to avoid risk-taking that historically has led to steep principal losses.”
Among some of the top fund holdings currently are Fannie Mae issues and an issue from Credit Suisse Mortgage Trust to name a few. The chart shows an exaggerated move in terms of an unrealistic daily trading high last Friday, which likely resulted from a sloppily executed market order as opposed to illiquidity.