Some say that bonds are in a bubble, others are convinced that rates could stay low for years like they did in the 50s and 60s. With baby boomers becoming more risk averse with age and ultra low CD rates bonds have been an attractive choice. The Federal Reserve is also a big buyer of treasuries for the next several months so that should keep a bid under this market as well. On the flip side, there are signs that all the liquidity the fed is providing will ultimately lead to much higher levels of inflation which is the #1 enemy of bonds.
What are the best bond etf alternatives if you want to take advantage of either the upside or the down side in bonds? In this article I'm only going to address Long Term 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Bonds.
The plain vanilla bond etf that is also the most actively traded is TLT. This fund is offered by iShares and is designed to reflect the performance of the 20+ Year Treasury Bond Index. At least 90% of the funds assets are invested in U.S. Treasury Bonds that correspond to the underlying index.
If you want to speculate on higher bond prices (lower yields) then there are also a couple Leveraged ETF products available however these introduce higher risk so they are strictly for experienced traders.
UBT - ProShares Ultra 20+ Year Treasury is a fund designed to offer a 200% correlation to the daily performance of the Barclays Capital 20+ Year U.S. Treasury Index. In other words this is a Double Long Bond ETF or what others may call a 2X Leveraged Bond ETF. If TLT goes up 1% in a day, the goal of this fund is to go up 2%.
If you want even more risk, there is even a Triple Long or 3X Leveraged Bond ETF!
Apex Trader Funding rules are ridiculous easy… hit profit target, avoid max drawdown and BOOM. Up to 300k Funded Trader Account. How good of a trader are you
If you need any kind of information on this article related topic click here: Best Funded Trader Program
