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3 Income Funds to Avoid in 2023

These high-risk, high-fee funds are unattractive.

3 Income Funds to Avoid in 2023

Russel Kinnel: We rate funds on a scale that goes from Negative to Neutral to Bronze then Silver and Gold. We generally rate the bigger and better funds, so we don’t issue a lot of Negatives, but there are a few. These are funds where the risk/reward profile coupled with fees are just unattractive. I’ll share three that we’re really not impressed with.

3 Income Funds to Avoid in 2023

  1. Invesco Variable Rate Investment Grade ETF VRIG
  2. Thompson Bond THOPX
  3. Federated Hermes Muni and Stock Advantage FMUIX

Investors in bond funds want very little risk, but they also want high yield. Unfortunately that yield comes with risk. And investors in ultrashort bond funds expect very little risk even relative to other bond funds. That’s why we’re not fans of Invesco Variable Rate Investment Grade. It invests in floating-rate corporate bonds and credit risk transfers. They are short-maturity, so there’s not much interest-rate risk. But those instruments do have plenty of credit and liquidity risk. It produces a nice yield, but it’s at a risk level that’s too much for most ultrashort bond fund investors to stomach.

Our Negative rating on Thompson Bond Fund has a rare Below Average sweep across the pillars, including Parent, People, and Process. You won’t see that very often. The fund has a small team investing in bonds that are just laden with credit risk. They have half the portfolio in BBB rated bonds. Recently they’ve been adding quite a bit of securitized credit despite lacking expertise in the area comparable to what you’d see at most funds investing in the sector. It’s an unappealing package that can have nice returns in rallies but lost about double the benchmark average in recent selloffs.

Federated Hermes Muni and Stock Advantage rates Below Average for People and Process, leading to a Negative rating overall. Federated kind of made a mess of things when they combined two different teams to run this fund. It resulted in a mishmash of portfolio philosophy and people. The fund follows an uncommon strategy of holding munis in a balanced fund so that it should be more tax friendly than a typical balanced fund. That’s a good idea, but we need to see more cohesion before we recommend this fund.

Watch “3 of the Best Fund Companies” for more from Russel Kinnel.

The author or authors do not own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstar’s editorial policies.

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