WisdomTree Bianco Fixed Inc Ttl Ret ETF’s management team is rated Average, but a solid investment process still helps this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the second-cheapest fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy's investment process inspires confidence and earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained a significant overweight position in AA rated bonds and an underweight in cash compared with category peers. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm a Below Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

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WisdomTree Bianco Fixed Inc Ttl Ret Fd earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category benchmark on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. The most significant contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The parent firm's superior risk-adjusted performance, as shown by its average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.3 stars, also contributes to the process. Lastly, the process is limited by the turnover of talent across its parent firm. The firm's asset-weighted manager tenure of three years suggests it could do more to retain portfolio managers.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is: 

The investment seeks to track the price and yield performance, before fees and expenses, of the Bianco Research Fixed Income Total Return Index.  Under normal circumstances, the fund primarily invests in the constituent exchange-traded funds (“ETF”) of the index. The index, created by Bianco Research Advisors LLC, and is composed of approximately 5 to 20 fixed income ETFs that are specifically selected and weighted using a modified market-capitalization weighting scheme to achieve specified factor exposures.  

  The portfolio has a higher average surveyed credit quality of A, compared with the typical peers' BBB, and it holds no non-investment-grade assets, despite the average peers' 8%. Strategies with lower credit risk can typically withstand market turmoil more effectively. In terms of long-term interest-rate risk, this strategy is on par with peers. The longer a strategy's duration, the more sensitive it is to shifts in interest rates. This fund, with a 5.6-year duration, is expected to gain 5.6% of its net asset value if interest rates drop by 1 percentage point, and vice versa.

Above Average

Process

WisdomTree’s team is valuable but does not stand out as one of the industry's best, warranting an Average People Pillar rating. There’s a deep bench of five managers listed on the fund. Together, they manage a total of 114 strategies, with a Bronze asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating, demonstrating their potential to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median in aggregate.  

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

Average

People

WisdomTree is improving, but its shaky global fund lineup and uncertain trajectory hold its rating to Below Average. 

WisdomTree’s research organization has long been a strength. Under CIO Jeremy Schwartz, the team has generated creative, economically sound ideas and evolved them into investable products, like the efficient core series. A recent focus on investor education spawned the Portfolio Analysis Tools Hub, an online platform that taps the team’s brainpower to help investors make better investment decisions.

The firm’s product lineup is a mixed bag. To complement its core lineup of fundamentally weighted strategies, WisdomTree has recently launched funds targeting established factors instead of trendy themes—an encouraging reorientation. Yet the shutdown of WisdomTree U.S. Growth and Momentum ETF calls WisdomTree’s commitment to these funds into question, and vestiges from its laxer product-development era look ripe for closure. Its European lineup features risky trading tools that are hard for investors to use well. 

WisdomTree’s future may hinge on WisdomTree Prime, its blockchain-based digital wallet. The launch reflects founder and CEO Jonathan Steinberg’s conviction in the disruptive potential of the blockchain. Prime shouldn’t hurt WisdomTree fund investors (most funds on the platform are zero-fee), but it may distract the firm from shoring up its core offering.

Below Average

Parent

WisdomTree Bianco Total Return Fund

WTBN is a passively managed fund-of-funds, aiming to outperform index-based core fixed income ETFs. The underlying index is constructed utilizing fundamental, rules-based research to select and weight components among broad fixed income exposure globally.

WisdomTree announced today the launch of the WisdomTree Bianco Total Return Fund (WTBN) on the Nasdaq. WTBN is a fund of funds that uses a market-efficient strategy based on macro and fundamental factors.

News for WisdomTree Bianco Total Return Fund ETF (WTBN)