Best ETF Bet Against Bonds

Investing can be a daunting task, especially when there are so many worries out there.

From the federal reserve interest rate hikes, inflation, and a possible recession, a lot of folks are worried about their financial future.

Many investors turn to U.S. Treasury bonds as a safe asset in times of uncertainty. 

Financial pros often search for 20+ year Treasury bond ETF TLT since it’s considered a safe haven.

But with the problems facing us, the inverse 20+ year Treasury bond ETF TBF soared to the top of the search rankings among financial pros.

Inverse ETFs can be tricky to master, so we’ll break down the top search and let you know if it’s teh best of the bunch.

Key Facts About TBF

• Net assets:$185.82 million
• 12-month trailing yield: 
• Inception: August 20, 2009
• Expense ratio: 0.92%
• Number of holdings: N/A

Inverse bond ETFs use derivatives, such as swaps, to track the underlying index.

The ProShares Short 20+ Year Treasury ETF (TBF) is a fund that seeks to provide investors with inverse (-1x) exposure to the daily performance of the Barclays Capital U.S. 20+ Year Treasury Index. 

This ETF can be a powerful tool for those looking to bet against long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, as it stands to benefit from rising interest rates and a hawkish Federal Reserve policy. 

Source: ProShares

Performance

Since bonds have performed well over the last several decades, any bet against the bond market typically has negative returns.

You can see that even on a short term basis, the returns are only good since the rate hikes began.

Source: ProShares

Go back further, and you’ll find the returns diminished.

That’s why most bearish bond ETFs are best used as hedges or trades rather than core holdings.

However, we’ll discuss why TBF is the best for long-term hedging.

Competition

There aren’t a ton of bearish bond ETFs out there. 

All of them focus on long-dated bonds (no short-dated ETFs). Additionally, they all track the daily index movement, meaning they reset every day.

• UltraShort Barclays 20+ Year Treasury (TBT): The TBT is essentially the TBF but with 2x the leverage.
• UltraPro Short 20+ Year Treasury (TTT): Taking it a step further, the TTT is like the TBF, but with 3x the leverage.
• Direxion Daily 20-Year Treasury Bear 3X (TMV): Basically, another version of the TTT.

All of these ETFs run higher than typical expense ratios. The TBF has no leverage, whereas the TBT has 2x, and the TTT and TMV have 3x.

Amongst the group, TBT is the most liquid with higher daily trading volume and options activity.

Our Opinion 10/10

The TBF is a great option if you want to bet against long-term U.S. Treasuries.

 It’s the only unleveraged inverse ETF, which means you can hold it as a long-term hedge without suffering from what’s known as ‘leverage decay.’

If you don’t know what that means, just look at the 5-year returns between the TBF and TBT. See how the TBT returns are more than 5x worse, even though it’s just a 2x ETF?

That’s from leverage decay.

You don’t get that with the TBF, which is why for betting against long-dated U.S. Treasury bonds, this is the best ETF.