A 'Cheat Code' for the Bond Market

George Cipolloni’s son is a video-game aficionado, and the teenager’s language has clearly worn off on his father. Indeed, the portfolio manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management jokes he’s found a “cheat code” in the bond market that’s helped his balanced strategy beat its benchmark with a heavy allocation to high-yield corporate debt. But don’t be alarmed: His “code” is really just fundamental analysis used to find bonds with attractive yields, but little risk. 

Cipolloni joined the latest episode of “What Goes Up” to discuss the strategy and offer his reaction to the wild ride in markets following the surprise inflation report on Sept. 13. Some highlights of the conversation: 

“So the ‘cheat code’ in the bond market for me and for our strategy is: Where can you limit risk or where can you lower risk in a high-yield security? Well, you can find certain smaller securities because we are a small fund at the moment and we can buy these smaller securities, smaller issues. And you can find companies that have more cash than debt on the balance sheet.”

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