Central banks have pushed their stimulus programs as far as they can go, leaving very few areas for a bond investor to make money other than high yield, said Carl Kaufman, portfolio manager for the Osterweis Strategic Income Fund . ‘We may still have some room to go if they go helicopter money, but we are in the tenth inning here,’ said Kaufman. ‘I think returns are going to be low for sovereign and investment-grade bond investors, but there is still some room on the high yield side.’ The Osterweis Strategic Income Fund is up 6.3% thus far in 2016, according to Morningstar. The $4.9 billion fund has returned an average of 3% annually over the past three years, placing it in the 65th percentile in Morningstar’s high yield bond category. The fund sports a trailing twelve month yield of 5.7%, according to Morningstar. Over 80% of Kaufman’s fund is in short duration high yield securities. Kaufman said the fund has less than 80 names that are chosen on a bottoms up basis and are purchased with the intent of holding them to maturity. As of the end of June, some of the fund’s larger allocations were in issues from Rite Aid, Regis Corp and Hertz, according to Morningstar. Kaufman said he currently has minimal exposure to the energy and materials sectors, even though they have been big winners this year in the high-yield arena after last year’s collapse. ‘They helped us last year, they didn’t help us this year and going forward I don’t think they will be much help,’ said Kaufman. ‘They will pretty much recoup their losses.’ Kaufman is also keen on cash at this juncture, calling it a ‘strategic asset class’ that will allow him to buy on market weakness. And he sees that market weakness coming around the November election. ‘The central banks are full steam ahead trying to float markets and we’re raising cash in this environment,’ said Kaufman.
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