Fixed Income

Monthly commentary: Total Return Fund

Total Return Fund Monthly Insight

Diversification at the core

A diversified core bond strategy can help your portfolio deliver more consistent performance through market cycles. BlackRock Total Return Fund seeks returns in a variety of fixed income sectors.

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Performance and positioning update

  • The fund posted a negative return in October as rates experienced significant volatility due to strong economic data releases and uncertainty around the US election.
  • Over the month, we increased our top-line duration to a meaningful overweight position versus the benchmark. We increased our position in the front-end of the curve to a modest overweight position as markets started repricing the amount of rate cuts in line with our view. Additionally, we added to our overweight in the belly of the curve. We increased our positions in Agency Mortgages, US High Yield Credit, and Structured Products.

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Diversified sources of return

Diversified sources of return

Source: BlackRock. Active return contribution represents above-benchmark performance. One basis point is one hundredth of one percent (0.01%). Return attribution is based on gross returns of the fund’s Institutional share class. Macro strategy is how the portfolio management team implements thematic and macro-economic investment views through duration, yield curve and foreign-currency positioning. Residual: This non-attributable portion of the fund’s total return is derived from trading and allocation effects across the fund’s investment strategies.

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David Rogal
Managing Director, Multi-sector Mutual Fund Team within Global Fixed Income
David Rogal, Managing Director, is a member of the Multi-Sector Retail & Rates team within BlackRock's Americas Fixed Income Group. He is a portfolio manager on the Multi-Sector Mutual Fund Team.
Rick Rieder
Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income
Rick is BlackRock's Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income, and Head of the Global Allocation Investment Team.
Chi Chen
Director, Multi sector Mutual Fund Team within Global Fixed Income
Chi Chen, Director, is a Portfolio Manager in BlackRock's Global Fixed Income Investment Group, focusing on US multi sector fixed income mandates and global government bond mandates. She is co-manager of BlackRock's Total Return Fund, Core Bond Fund, US Dollar Bond Fund, and Global Government Bond Fund.

I’m up at 3:45 every morning. I want to know where all the markets are. I work out for an hour then the day really gets going.

I’m Rick Rieder, Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income at BlackRock.

So my job is investing money for clients trying to generate returns using fixed income assets within portfolios. From being in this business for 35 years, you learn you got to be thoughtful, you got to innovate, you got to be different, and then apply that to the experience you have and the research that you’re doing.

Education for me is literally the foundation of everything. I’m chairman of the board of North Star Academy. It’s over 14 charter schools, serving 6,000 kids in the city of Newark. We started an internship program to bring high school kids in to help them with not just understanding markets, the economy, finance, but also understanding how you interface in business. We’re helping to change the future of thousands of underserved kids.

It gives you a real boost to see the difference you can make.

There’s a lot to do in a day, but when you start to see what you can get done, I think it’s safe to say that I won’t look back and wish I had slept more.

Meet Rick Rieder: Morningstar’s 2023 Outstanding Portfolio Manager

Rick Rieder, Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income, has been awarded the 2023 Morningstar Award for Investing Excellence, Outstanding Portfolio Manager. Rick Rieder’s consistent approach to managing strategies like Strategic Income OpportunitiesTotal Return, Global Allocation and more have helped funds deliver long-term success.

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Performance data quoted represents past performance and is no guarantee of future results. Investment returns and principal values may fluctuate so that an investor’s shares, when redeemed, may be worth more or less than their original cost. All returns assume reinvestment of dividends and capital gains. Current performance may be lower or higher than that shown. Refer to blackrock.com for most recent month-end performance.

To obtain more information on the fund, including the Morningstar time period ratings and standardized average annual total returns as of the most recent calendar quarter and current month-end, please visit Total Return Fund.

The Morningstar RatingTM for funds, or "star rating," is calculated for managed products (including mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life subaccounts, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds, and separate accounts) with at least a three-year history. Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds are considered a single population for comparative purposes. It is calculated based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a managed product's monthly excess performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The top 10% of products in each product category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars, and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a managed product is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five-, and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. The weights are: 100% three-year rating for 36-59 months of total returns, 60% five-year rating/40% three-year rating for 60-119 months of total returns, and 50% 10-year rating/30% five-year rating/20% three-year rating for 120 or more months of total returns. While the 10-year overall star rating formula seems to give the most weight to the 10-year period, the most recent three-year period actually has the greatest impact because it is included in all three rating periods.