A History of Trust: Crews Banking Corporation

Since we use both Vanguard and iShares by BlackRock Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) extensively, one of my pleasures over the last few years has been seeing each company try to outdo the other by lowering costs. As they continue to lower costs, they gather more and more investments. As referenced in a recent Bloomberg article, together they account for 64% of the ETF market as Vanguard is getting close to the size of BlackRock.

In a compelling article by BlackRock, they make an argument that even though we are facing higher than normal inflation and turmoil, that fear is driving investors to hold too much cash.

The duration of the corporate bond indexes have crept up from 5.5 years to 8.0 years over the last 12 years. Both from companies desires to lock lower rates for longer and due to the lower coupon payments (which increase duration since you don’t get your investment back sooner.)