BlackRock Fixed Income SMAs

BlackRock’s suite of fixed income separately managed accounts (SMAs) helps advisors build personalized portfolios of individual municipal and taxable bonds seeking to meet their clients’ unique needs.

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BlackRock’s fixed income SMAs

Explore BlackRock’s full platform of fixed income SMAs to address your clients’ needs.

Municipal fixed income Taxable fixed income
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The table below shows portfolio characteristics for our sample portfolios. For actual strategy performance and characteristics, view the strategy fact sheet or GIPS Composite Report.

Fixed Income Strategy Avg. yield to worst-Gross (%) Avg. tax-equivalent yield to worst-Gross (%) Avg. coupon (%) Avg. effective duration (yrs) Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Short-term Municipal 2.61 4.40 5.00 2.93 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Intermediate Municipal 2.84 4.80 5.00 4.99 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Long-Term Municipal 3.49 5.90 4.93 8.15 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Municipal Opportunities† 3.85 6.22 4.92 6.04 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Municipal Ladder 1-5 Year 2.67 4.28 5.00 2.44 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Municipal Ladder 1-10 Year 2.60 4.39 5.00 4.24 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Municipal Ladder 5-15 Year 2.97 5.02 5.00 6.66 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Municipal Ladder 10-20 Year 3.47 5.86 5.00 8.65 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report

For illustrative purposes only. Portfolio characteristic data, including the yields shown above, do not reflect results of actual BlackRock accounts or strategies. The portfolio characteristics data shown is that of the respective hypothetical sample portfolio. Actual results may differ. The sample portfolios illustrate a hypothetical portfolio for the investment strategy identified above to illustrate the types of investments that may be purchased for a client selecting such investment strategy. The hypothetical portfolio is based on the current market environment and is not the result of actual trading. The holdings identified do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold or recommended for any particular advisory client and in the aggregate may represent only a small percentage of an actual client's portfolio holdings. The holdings do not constitute a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any particular security and you should not assume that an investment in any of the securities was or will be profitable. Actual client portfolios will differ for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, account size, the timing of client investments, differences in in market conditions and in the number, types, availability and diversity of securities that can be purchased, liquidity considerations and client objectives and guidelines. This information is shown for illustrative purposes and is subject to change. The yields of the sample portfolios are shown gross of fees and do not reflect the deduction of all applicable fees and expenses. Refer to the total portfolio’s gross and net performance shown in the respective GIPS Reports for the overall effect of fees. The portfolio characteristics shown are the data points most requested by Financial Advisor clients. Please click on the sample portfolio link for more information. Data as of November 3, 2025.

† BlackRock Allocation Target Shares (BATS) mutual funds available for use within BlackRock Separately Managed Account Strategies.

The table below shows portfolio characteristics for our sample portfolios. For actual strategy performance and characteristics, view the strategy fact sheet or GIPS Composite Report.

Fixed Income Strategy Avg. yield to worst-Gross (%) Avg. coupon (%) Avg. effective duration (yrs) Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Short-Term Taxable 3.79 4.34 1.90 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Intermediate Taxable 4.21 3.95 4.24 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Fundamental Core Taxable 4.40 3.83 5.86 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Short Duration† 3.83 3.83 1.91 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Core Bond† 4.39 3.92 5.94 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Government/Corporate Taxable 4.19 3.94 6.14 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Corporate Ladder 1-5 year 4.12 4.28 2.19 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report
Corporate Ladder 1-10 year 4.38 4.21 4.33 Fact Sheet Sample Portfolio GIPS Composite Report

For illustrative purposes only. Portfolio characteristic data, including the yields shown above, do not reflect results of actual BlackRock accounts or strategies. The portfolio characteristics data shown is that of the respective hypothetical sample portfolio. Actual results may differ. The sample portfolios illustrate a hypothetical portfolio for the investment strategy identified above to illustrate the types of investments that may be purchased for a client selecting such investment strategy. The hypothetical portfolio is based on the current market environment and is not the result of actual trading. The holdings identified do not represent all of the securities purchased, sold or recommended for any particular advisory client and in the aggregate may represent only a small percentage of an actual client's portfolio holdings. The holdings do not constitute a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any particular security and you should not assume that an investment in any of the securities was or will be profitable. Actual client portfolios will differ for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, account size, the timing of client investments, differences in in market conditions and in the number, types, availability and diversity of securities that can be purchased, liquidity considerations and client objectives and guidelines. This information is shown for illustrative purposes and is subject to change. The yields of the sample portfolios are shown gross of fees and do not reflect the deduction of all applicable fees and expenses. Refer to the total portfolio’s gross and net performance shown in the respective GIPS Reports for the overall effect of fees. The portfolio characteristics shown are the data points most requested by Financial Advisor clients. Please click on the sample portfolio link for more information. Data as of November 3, 2025.

† BlackRock Allocation Target Shares (BATS) mutual funds available for use within BlackRock Separately Managed Account Strategies.

Schedule a meeting with an SMA specialist

If you have any questions about our fixed income SMA offering, schedule a meeting with one of our SMA specialists. They can review SMA strategies available at your firm, portfolio customization capabilities and generate client-friendly portfolios.
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2025 guide to using municipal bonds in high-net-worth portfolios

Muni SMAs are an attractive vehicle for high-net-worth investors seeking tax-efficient income and capital preservation. We have partnered with Envestnet to create a primer on munis and how they can be implemented in HNW portfolios.
Access the guide here Access the guide here

Slide 1: Custom Cover Page

BlackRock has recently launched new proposal capabilities through My Managed Accounts, including personalized transition and risk scenario analyses. These proposals can be customized to every client and help tell the story of how BlackRock fixed income SMAs can help your clients in meeting their investing goals. In this video we will walk through some of the capabilities and features you can expect.

Slide 2: Transition Analysis

Let's start with the transition analysis. For advisors with portfolios funded with existing securities, we will develop a plan to tax-efficiently transition your clients’ bonds to a BlackRock SMA. Our transition analyses include a breakdown of current and proposed holdings, as well as buy and sell rationale to help explain changes in the portfolio. In this example the Portfolio Manager looks to optimize the curve expression to increase the portfolio’s yield and cash flow while maintaining a similar duration profile.

Slide 3: Risk Analysis

Now, let's explore our risk analysis capabilities. We leverage our Aladdin technology to create custom risk analyses to help you make informed decisions. From interest rate shocks to historical scenarios, we offer over fifty risk scenarios. In this video, we will be examining the fixed income scenario slide. In this analysis, we illustrate the portfolios impact based on an instantaneous shock to the 10yr treasury as well as effects from credit spread adjustments in both investment grade and high yield.

Conclusion

We are excited to continue expanding our resources and capabilities to better serve you and your clients. Please reach out to your BlackRock portfolio manager to request a custom proposal or learn more about our fixed income SMA platform.

Important Notes

Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Asset allocation and diversification may not protect against market risk, loss of principal or volatility of returns. Actual investment outcomes may vary. There is no guarantee that these investment strategies will work under all market conditions or are suitable for all investors and each investor should evaluate their ability to invest long-term, especially during periods of downturn in the market. No representation is being made that any account, product, or strategy will or is likely to achieve profits. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, accounting, legal or tax advice. You should consult your tax or legal advisor regarding such matters. This material is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast, research or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt any investment strategy.

BlackRock’s Aladdin platform is a financial technology platform designed for institutional client use only and is not intended for end investor use. Aladdin users undertake sole responsibility and liability for investment or other decisions related to the technology’s calculations and for compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The technology should not be viewed or construed by any Aladdin users, or their customers or clients, as providing investment advice or investment recommendations to any parties.

©2025 BlackRock, Inc. or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. BLACKROCK is a trademark of BlackRock, Inc. or its affiliates. All other trademarks are those of their respective owners.

New Proposal Builder

Watch this video to learn more about BlackRock’s new fixed income SMA proposal capabilities, featuring personalized transition and risk scenario analyses powered by Aladdin. Contact your BlackRock representative for more information.

Why BlackRock for fixed income SMAS

BlackRock is a leader in the fixed income SMA industry, managing over $70B in client assets.1 Our platform offers a scalable process to help advisors build personalized bond portfolios for their clients.
Fixed income SMA deck Fixed income SMA deck

The BlackRock SMA experience

number 1

Meet your PM2

BlackRock portfolio managers partner locally with advisors to help build, transition and manage client portfolios.
number 2

Customize beyond the ordinary

Consultative approach to working with advisors to build personalized portfolios with a focus on solving investor needs.
number 3

Transition with care

Transition bonds in-kind over a multi-year tax budget, seeking to minimize tax friction while maintaining the integrity of the portfolio.
number 4

Invest at scale

BlackRock’s allocation to new issuances allows us to purchase bonds at scale which can benefit clients through lower transaction costs.3

Scale matters when trading municipal bonds

BlackRock generally trades on the financial market to purchase bonds for clients at a larger scale, potentially benefiting investors with lower transaction costs and greater access to inventory.
Image showing average spreads

BlackRock customizes fixed income SMAs across five dimensions

BlackRock fixed income SMAs offer a range of enhanced customization capabilities seeking to deliver personalized solutions for advisors and their clients.
Fixed income SMA customization guide Fixed income SMA customization guide
5 step personalization graph

A discussion on fixed income SMAs: Hear from the experts

Kevin Staub, SMA Commercial Strategy and Duane Liedl, Senior Portfolio Manager discuss fixed income SMAs and how BlackRock is partnering with advisors to help deliver personalized solutions to their clients.

[00:00:06.28] KEVIN STAUB: Welcome. Thanks for joining us. I'm Kevin Staub. And I lead our SMA commercial strategy for BlackRock's US Wealth business. I'm joined today by Duane Liedl, head fixed-income portfolio manager in the Northeast. Today, we're going to take you through BlackRock's SMA platform. And we're going to spend some time talking about the benefits of the fixed-income SMA wrapper, as well as some of the use cases that advisors and clients are partnering with us in us Wealth. Duane, thanks for joining us today.
[00:00:36.20] DUANE LIEDL: Happy to be here, Kevin. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:38.60] KEVIN STAUB: So Duane, it's clear the current UN environment is presenting vast opportunities in fixed income, and particularly against prior years. When I tend to think about the SMA structure, I typically think about the security ownership. But can you share why that's important and any other attributes about the SMA structure that make an attractive vehicle for the clients that you're working with?
[00:01:02.20] DUANE LIEDL: I think when you boil it down, Kevin, it really comes down to having more control, right? Control over the portfolio construction and client experience, control over tax efficiency, and the control over the cost of ownership, right? Both explicit and implicit. I think we would all agree that there's a societal shift at hand by consumers towards more unique and customized experiences.
[00:01:26.81] Specifically, regarding SMAs, the fact that, A, the clients funds are not commingled with other investors can help limit the impact that other investors may have on your performance. And B, you're dealing with the underlying securities, which provides increased flexibility to personalize the portfolio, and in turn, better control for a more positive client experience.
[00:01:50.10] Another area that advisors and clients want more control over is taxes, or tax efficiency, which is a very popular topic today. The SMA vehicle can provide a number of advantages for clients, from how the portfolio is initially funded and the ability to incorporate that into the strategy, to the taxation of the income that is generated, to the ability to tax lost harvest individual bonds, which was in very high demand from our clients last year, given the challenging year for fixed-income investors.
[00:02:20.52] Last but not least, owning the individual bonds is very important to many of our clients. We call it having permanence and definition-- in other words, a set of fixed features, whether it's the bond's maturity, the coupon, the underlying credit quality of the issuer, that can be counted on to deliver for our clients, especially during periods of high market uncertainty. That's an important feature of SMAs.
[00:02:45.46] KEVIN STAUB: Duane, I really like that-- the control for investors, the tax efficiency in several different ways, and really, that permanence in definition for clients to hold those bonds in their portfolio. I've also seen that some of the benefits compound through the advisor lens. And we like to refer to this as practice management. We still see many advisors managing bonds on their own. And more often than not, they're doing it well.
[00:03:10.72] But those advisors are reaching out and looking for differentiated and more efficient ways of doing bonds. Some that we've worked with have found that partnering with BlackRock may alleviate the risk of sourcing individual bonds, may offer enhanced capabilities to compete for some of those complex client situations. And most importantly, it frees up the time to focus on other areas, such as business building, wealth management, or retirement planning.
[00:03:39.59] So bringing it all together, SMAs can add value across the portfolio. And they can do so at costs that are comparable to ETFs, making them an attractive option for both advisors and their client. So thank you for joining us. If you'd like to learn more about BlackRock's fixed-income business or BlackRock's SMA platform, please contact your local representative. Thank you.

Video Playlist

[00:00:06.28] KEVIN STAUB: Welcome. Thanks for joining us. I'm Kevin Staub. And I lead our SMA commercial strategy for BlackRock's US Wealth business. I'm joined today by Duane Liedl, head fixed-income portfolio manager in the Northeast. Today, we're going to take you through BlackRock's SMA platform. And we're going to spend some time talking about the benefits of the fixed-income SMA wrapper, as well as some of the use cases that advisors and clients are partnering with us in us Wealth. Duane, thanks for joining us today.
[00:00:36.20] DUANE LIEDL: Happy to be here, Kevin. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:38.60] KEVIN STAUB: So Duane, it's clear the current UN environment is presenting vast opportunities in fixed income, and particularly against prior years. When I tend to think about the SMA structure, I typically think about the security ownership. But can you share why that's important and any other attributes about the SMA structure that make an attractive vehicle for the clients that you're working with?
[00:01:02.20] DUANE LIEDL: I think when you boil it down, Kevin, it really comes down to having more control, right? Control over the portfolio construction and client experience, control over tax efficiency, and the control over the cost of ownership, right? Both explicit and implicit. I think we would all agree that there's a societal shift at hand by consumers towards more unique and customized experiences.
[00:01:26.81] Specifically, regarding SMAs, the fact that, A, the clients funds are not commingled with other investors can help limit the impact that other investors may have on your performance. And B, you're dealing with the underlying securities, which provides increased flexibility to personalize the portfolio, and in turn, better control for a more positive client experience.
[00:01:50.10] Another area that advisors and clients want more control over is taxes, or tax efficiency, which is a very popular topic today. The SMA vehicle can provide a number of advantages for clients, from how the portfolio is initially funded and the ability to incorporate that into the strategy, to the taxation of the income that is generated, to the ability to tax lost harvest individual bonds, which was in very high demand from our clients last year, given the challenging year for fixed-income investors.
[00:02:20.52] Last but not least, owning the individual bonds is very important to many of our clients. We call it having permanence and definition-- in other words, a set of fixed features, whether it's the bond's maturity, the coupon, the underlying credit quality of the issuer, that can be counted on to deliver for our clients, especially during periods of high market uncertainty. That's an important feature of SMAs.
[00:02:45.46] KEVIN STAUB: Duane, I really like that-- the control for investors, the tax efficiency in several different ways, and really, that permanence in definition for clients to hold those bonds in their portfolio. I've also seen that some of the benefits compound through the advisor lens. And we like to refer to this as practice management. We still see many advisors managing bonds on their own. And more often than not, they're doing it well.
[00:03:10.72] But those advisors are reaching out and looking for differentiated and more efficient ways of doing bonds. Some that we've worked with have found that partnering with BlackRock may alleviate the risk of sourcing individual bonds, may offer enhanced capabilities to compete for some of those complex client situations. And most importantly, it frees up the time to focus on other areas, such as business building, wealth management, or retirement planning.
[00:03:39.59] So bringing it all together, SMAs can add value across the portfolio. And they can do so at costs that are comparable to ETFs, making them an attractive option for both advisors and their client. So thank you for joining us. If you'd like to learn more about BlackRock's fixed-income business or BlackRock's SMA platform, please contact your local representative. Thank you.

FAQ's

  • Not all bonds are created equal. Some of the key differences between municipal and taxable bonds include the issuer and type of projects that will be funded, risk profile, yields and tax implications. It is important to consider the potential benefits and risks of each when deciding the best option for your specific situation.

  • Taxes vary according to the type of bond you own. Tax-equivalent yield is the return calculation that puts a taxable and tax-exempt bond on equal footing. To calculate tax-equivalent yield, divide the municipal (tax-free) yield by 100% minus the investor’s tax bracket. This formula helps in comparing municipal and taxable bonds.

  • Bonds typically pay interest on a semiannual basis, or every 6-months.

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