Gurtin Fixed Income - Tailoring a Core Fixed Income Strategy


Protect Principal, Maximize After-Tax Return, Limit Volatility

Gurtin Fixed Income Management's philosophy is grounded in the belief that fixed income should represent the low risk, low volatility portion of an individual's portfolio. As such, we focus exclusively on the sectors with the lowest credit risk and on portfolios with low volatility.

    Sectors of Focus:

  • High Grade Municipal Securities
  • US Government Securities
  • US Government Agency Securities

    Our integrated approach and strategy begins with the portfolio manager:

  • Understanding a client's objectives
  • Analyzing their unique needs and tax situation
  • Developing a market-based strategy
  • Analyzing individual securities
  • Building tailored client portfolios that meet the client's liquidity needs and maximize after-tax dollars

No two individuals' needs and objectives are exactly the same, but experience shows that groups of people may have some factors in common. To this end, in addition to building highly customized portfolios for our clients, we have developed four composite strategies that have historically fit the needs of our clients. We tailor each separate portfolio within these composite strategies based upon an individual's unique liquidity, duration and tax requirements. For instance, our short duration portfolio is designed to generate incremental yield by holding highly liquid non-cash assets. In contrast, our core fixed income portfolio is targeted toward longer-term investors who want to maximize after-tax returns and limit volatility. The composite strategies also are tailored to the specific tax situation of the client and whether they are subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

A Top Down/ Bottom Up Approach

To formulate our strategies, we start at the top and move down by determining our outlook for the economy and interest rates. Then from the bottom up, we look at the universe of high-quality, low-volatility securities and select those that currently exhibit the best value in the marketplace and will likely perform well in the future.

We do not focus specifically on “municipal” or “taxable” fixed income management. Instead, we analyze each client's tax and liquidity situation individually, and focus on identifying the securities (municipal and/or taxable securities) that offer the highest after-tax yield with the lowest risk and volatility.

Execution

We maintain a disciplined approach to execution by using historical absolute and relative benchmarks and seasonable supply and demand characteristics. Our head of trading has over 20 years of experience dealing with an institutional network of national and regional broker-dealers, which enables us to obtain the most competitive prices for securities. Post-execution, we continually monitor client portfolios to ensure compliance with our investment guidelines.

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