As bond investors may know, optimizing a portfolio for credit quality and duration can be a challenge, says Matt Schreiber, President of WBI Investments, Inc.
That’s why WBI decided to come out with a new ETF to solve this challenge – the WBI Bull|Bear Trend Switch US Total Return ETF (WBIN), which debuted today on the New York Stock Exchange.
WBI has long used sophisticated trend models which are momentum-following and analyze evolving macro trend risks as they relate to fixed income and equities.
Don Schreiber, Jr., Founder and CEO of WBI, said the WBI Bull|Bear Trend Switch ETF family will give investors broad market exposure with WBI’s hallmark risk management.
“WBIN brings our proprietary trend-following bond model that we’ve used for nearly 30 years to investors everywhere,” Schreiber, Jr. said. “By measuring a wide array of economic, corporate fundamental, interest rate and momentum trend data, our quantitative models can develop risk signals that significantly improve investment outcomes. The goal is to optimize bull market return while minimizing bear market loss.”
The company previously brought to market WBI Bull|Bear Trend Switch US 3000 Total Return ETF (WBIT).
Schreiber said they company feels the market needs these types of products.
“Market signals indicate we are in a late-stage bull market, and investors need to prepare for the next market cycle,” he said. “Trend following products can help navigate big bull and bear periods. WBI’s Trend Switch suite is designed to analyze an abundance of market data each week in an effort to find the optimal exposure, navigating away from market risk and large losses.”
The Bond Trend Switch strategy seeks to optimize risk and return by evaluating signals from a separate proprietary rules-based bond model. The Bond Model consists of two independently calculated models: a Quality Model and a Duration Model. The models assess conditions likely to affect the relative performance of US Treasuries, US Investment Grade Corporate Bonds, and US High Yield Bonds and determine their sensitivity to credit quality and duration. The Quality and Duration Models consider macroeconomic factors, interest rates, credit spreads, valuation, momentum and technical market indicators in fixed income, equity and commodity markets to determine the optimal duration and credit quality for bond holdings.
The WBI Bull|Bear Trend Switch ETFs are built upon the firm’s time-tested quantitative modeling experience to give investors simple solutions aiming to optimize bull and bear market cycles. At WBI, our mission is to manage risk by preserving capital to help improve an investment portfolio’s compounding efficiency. The WBI Bull|Bear Trend Switch ETFs offer a time-tested approach to help clients invest more successfully rather than trying to buy and hold through the market’s roller coaster of gains and losses by combining low-cost indexing and risk management.
For more new ETF launches, visit our New ETFs category.