YouSaid · the spoken record

Stephen Laipply

lines on the record: 74
first: 2025-06-20
most recent: 2025-06-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I think try to keep your money. Don't pay away too much of fees and definitely don't chase the hot, hot thing. I think being diversified, look, it may not be fun to talk about with your friends, but having a broad diversified portfolio over time, you're going to be fine. It's hair raising sometimes, but you're going to be fine over the long term.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No one bigger than So I did, in fact, do a lot of the common mistakes. You know, I chase things. I remember, you know, during the original internet boom, buying some really expensive racy mutual funds, which I subsequently wrote into the ditch. So I think part of it is, you know, the long-term idea, you know, really, really taking like that long-term view. Now, I did learn not to panic over the years, right? And not, you know, sort of, you know, useful skills.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I am going to admit this to you. I know many of your admonishments about investing. I was an original sinner, many of them.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the most important thing is you have to be honest with yourself about what you like to do. And so I have met students who say they want to get into the markets. And when you ask why that is, they have trouble articulating why. So I think part of it is you just really got to want to do this because if it's going to be your life's pursuit, you got to wake up on good days and bad days and still want to do it. Right. And there are good days and there are very bad days. And you still have to have that same sort of love of it. And so if you don't. Certain”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like a book that really kind of stuck with me over the years. It was about, you know, I love math statistics, all that stuff. It was a book called Against the Gods. And it was the remarkable story of risk. Peter Bernstein? Oh my God. One of my favorites.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, no, the Ken Burns stuff. All of his Ken Burns. Yeah, I really like that. But I'll watch any number of documentaries. I just think that really was a pivotal time for the country and the world. And it kind of has echoes and really long shadows. So I always thought that was really interesting.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Saw that go buy on Amazon. This was a, yeah, no, it's pretty cool. I had a friend of mine. I'm not sure why he recommended that book to me. There might be a hidden message in there. But I think that's pretty cool. Don't read too much into it. I like history books. And so, you know, I've read a lot of the Ken Byrne stuff. I think in particular the things I've been fascinated with, the 60s, I think, really helped shape the world that we're living in. For sure. So I've been a junkie of a lot of that stuff.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those things in order for that to happen. So if you listen and you work hard, I'll try to keep up my side of it as well. And that always struck me. And I thought that was a great way to put it. You know, he viewed his job as teaching, but also if I did the right things to help me in the long term. And so I thought that was really interesting. Another mentor told me that you can be really good at what you do, but you really have to get along with people. You really have to be able to know where somebody else is coming from, work well with people because you can be great at what you do. But if you're not pleasant to work with, it's not going to get you too far at all. And so I think that's another lesson. I mean, you know, a lot of times you like to think you're right in a certain debate or whatever, but you really do have to learn to bridge those gaps. Or it doesn't even matter how good you are, what you do.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and many of them are folks who've moved on. But I think there are certain people that I remember, you know, who really gave good advice. And I'll give you a couple of examples. I had a boss, one of my first ones out of business school. And he basically said, look, I view my job as teaching you. I want you to listen and learn. And then if you work hard, I view my other job is to help you create financial security for yourself and your family. But you have to do...”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All right, cool. That'll be some good bin. And I am still very fond of binge watching Law and Order. We'll try purposely to hold out because I do like binge watching all of the above, right? So whether it's organized crime or what have you.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Caddy Shack. Keep it fair. Keep it fair. Now, right now, streaming-wise, my wife makes us joke. She and my older sons will watch Yellowstone or something like that. I've always got my laptop open. Right. And so she's like, you don't really watch TV with us. You pretend to. But I think one of the fun things I'm watching Friends and Neighbors right now. So interesting. It's fun. Are you?”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I think munis have really seen some whipsaw as well, right? So a lot of folks now look at munis and see some opportunities there again this discussion around tax policy has really, really sort of caused a lot of volatility. At some point, you just have to really make an allocation decision. And if you are in a high tax bracket, I mean, munis can be pretty compelling and they've cheapened up a fair amount.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It goes the other way, it hurts. And so the debate's going to be, will it play that role if you get a big slowdown, right? If you get a huge risk off, will you see long-term yields rally like they have in the past? In light of some of the fiscal concerns, that's the big, big debate. And the dollar concerns on top of it. That's the debate.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've been seeing flows mostly go into very high quality. So that being treasuries, that being investment grade. That's where the bulk of flows have been moving into. And again, much of it has been in that sort of belly of the curve type of exposure. Now, mathematically, as a shock absorber, you're going to get your biggest kick from the very long end of the curve. We just talked about that. You're taking some risk there. Because it goes the other way.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, unless we go back to the 2010s, probably not. But I think my earlier point, it's going to be really hard to call like this is the best yield that I want to get into. It's more about we're going to have ups, we're going to have downs, we'll have cycles. It's really about building that portfolio out for the long term and getting income. So it's the first time in 20 odd years the income is back in fixed income. So that's pretty compelling.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure, are you likely to? Probably not. History would tell us that, except you had this long period that doesn't look really like anything that we've seen. 2010s, the 2010s, right?”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You could see long term yields come down temporarily. And so, to your point, you know, do you get 200 basis points up or do you get 50 to 100 down? It all depends on the unexpected by definition. If you get a sharp slowdown that nobody saw coming, you probably do see longer-term yields coming down. And I think not a lot of people are expecting that at all.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Edge higher That's been discussed because of this idea that depending, okay, depending on how the tax and spending bills come out and how people score that and what's that going to look like for the deficit, et cetera, et cetera, you know, the discussion could be, could you see further pressure on the very, very long end? The intermediate part is probably okay. So the real debate is, are we going to see more of a steepening depending on the outcome of the tax and spending bills, et cetera, et cetera? That's been the debate. Now, if you get an unexpected slowdown,”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our longer term bonds to be avoided completely. I think there's healthy debate on that. I do think that they still hold some shock absorber value depending on the situation. So, you know, we like, we kind of frame this as being positioned overweight in sort of this belly of the curve because we think that's a sweet spot. It doesn't mean that you should have zero. Right. Long term ones. You know, it could be having some might be a good sort of, you know, insurance policy in a way.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Moody's action sort of resurfaced that debate. If you look at term premium, meaning, and you know, again, let's define terms, the amount that investors want for holding very long-term bonds has gone up quite a lot over the last several months. And I think all of this is sort of playing into this idea that, yeah, longer-term yields are flirting with 5%. Could they go higher? They might. There's a lot of ambiguity around what our fiscal trajectory is. Are we at risk for further deterioration? We are running deficits with a growing economy. And that is, you know, and we're running larger ones than we historically have with a growing economy. So that's what's caused this fear of the long end.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Three to seven somewhere in that zip code, you know, whether it's in treasuries or high grade or even high yields in that area anyway. That's the maturity profile. But if you look at that versus, say, 30 years, I think that right now a lot of debate going on on the fiscal situation”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is the debate. Capital THE, right? So I think we've been very much in the camp of You know, the intermediate part of the curve is pretty attractive. So, you know, if you're looking inside to”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think whether you're looking at investment grade spreads or high yield spreads, right, the spreads to treasuries, they're both pretty tight relative to historical long-term historical averages. So yeah, the credit markets are telling you that so far, they are buying the resiliency story. They think that balance sheets are still in pretty good shape. I mean, you've heard this anecdote before that when yields were low, corporations did do very thoughtful issuance and they were able to lock in yields and really shore up their balance sheets and have these strong cash flow profiles. Now ultimately people will have to refinance and that may be at higher yields. So we'll see how long that holds. But so far spreads are telling you that the resiliency story is intact”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you just said it. Consensus has a funny way of maybe not actually materializing, right? So I think everybody's sort of locked in on this path now. It looks like just the way the curve is shaped and everything else. Well, we will see. The data has come in. You know, it depends. You can find people who have raised growth concerns, but then you can also find the resiliency crowd. There's just a lot of, I think, sort of mixed data right now. But overall, the economy seems to be holding in pretty well so far.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's what the market. I looked at this this morning. The market's pricing in a couple cuts by the end of the year, pricing in a couple cuts next year. And so it looks to me the market sort of settled on this idea that maybe wind up with a terminal rate of around, you know, three and a quarter, three and a half, somewhere in that zip code. So we'll see. I mean, the cut definitely got pushed out to September. I think originally, you know, if you go back even a few weeks ago, we were still thinking sort of mid to late summer, but that's now pushed into September for sure. So we'll see.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, again, if you just sort of go back and you look at a large fiscal impulse coupled with easy monetary policy, that's right out of the textbooks”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I did not. I did sit. I was a little bit disgruntled about that. It didn't work out scheduling. I did sit in on some of his lectures just as a guest in the back row.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Python That's interesting. I mean, yeah, you had a huge, huge fiscal impulse, very, very significant fiscal impulse. And sure, it could take time for that to work through. If you couple that with the idea that you unleash that fiscal impulse at a time when policy was still easy, the textbooks would tell you that you probably should expect some inflation. But I think, you know, if you look at just the way people had sort of entrenched their thinking post-crisis, they were caught off guard.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm going to say that is above my pay grade, but what I will say is if you look at a long, long time series, whether it's two, whether it's two and a half, I mean, I think generally right now, we're sort of in that zip code, right? So can they get it all the way down to a perfect two? I don't know. And do they want to or do you risk going to one and a half? I mean, that's for them to worry about. I do think that we're not too far off if you were to look at this over many, many, many years. The worry is somehow, does everything that's happening right now start sending you in the other direction? Again, people worrying about it, does that start, you know, causing specific actions that actually lead to it becoming more of a reality? I think that's what the Fed's sort of focused on.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interesting, I actually looked at this. If you go back to let's call it 95 to 2005, average inflation was around two and a half, not two, right? So if you kind of look at a long, long time series on Bloomberg's example, right now where we're sitting isn't too far off where we've been on a long, you know, 20-odd, 30-odd year journey. But I think what the Fed's worried about is, will any particular action cause people to start worrying that inflation will be higher? And as you know, sometimes that can become sort of a self-fulfilling thing. I think that's kind of the concern.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's hard to say. So I think, you know, I've heard both arguments. I think really what inflation is about, right? So whether it's tariffs or something else, you know, people often talk about these things is, well, that's a one-time shock versus something that happens repeatedly over and over again. I think some of that's academic. Inflation's really, I almost think it's a mind game or an expectations game. The real, I think, question is, does inflation, you know, a higher expectation for inflation somehow get embedded or get sort of resurfaced, right? As a result of whatever policy initiative? And so I think what the Fed's looking at is less about a specific thing and more about whether people start worrying that inflation will be at X level, like which may be above where the Fed wants it to be. To me, I think that's what they're really focused on is, you know, hey, we got things down. We're at 2.3%. And by the way,”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then we kind of hit sort of equilibrium. The economy seems to be doing all right as we talked about, you know, people were worried about recession. It hasn't materialized yet. The Fed paused for a while, started easing. Then all of a sudden you get new policy initiatives coming in, specifically tariffs, right? And so that caused a general rethinking of the way the economy is going to move going forward. Will inflation come back, won't it? It's just been, you know, a lot of up and downs. And as we were talking, if you just look at the trajectory of the tenure yield, we just sort of do this large, you know, kind of sine wave between, you know, call it sort of high threes and high fours. And we've been doing that now for a few years. So you're just sort of stuck in the middle of kind of a forehandle, but you get these ups and downs depending on what the driver is.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People were used to seeing rates bumping up against zero. I think at one point the tenure yield was somewhere in the 60s, 70 basis point range at the very, very, very lows. And I think this was quite a shock to people who were just sort of used to seeing the post-crisis quantitative easing regime. All of a sudden, you have yields moving to a two-handle, three-handle, four handle, and then ultimately a five handle.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's we've covered a couple of these things, but it's pick your theme. Okay, so let's go back a few years. We had COVID. We had the policy response to that. We then had transitory inflation, which became not transitory inflation. We then had the reverse policy response, which was to aggressively hike rates, the most aggressive tightening cycle in 40 years, right?”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right. Yeah, exactly. It's build a portfolio for the long term, you know, and you may say, well, I could have gotten a higher yield, or hey, I locked in a pretty good yield here. Either way, it's about the next 10 years. It's not about the next month.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. And you do have to go back to the mid 2000s to see yields at these levels. So it's a great opportunity. And rather than saying, well, I really want to hold on until 5%. You just may miss it. So we think it's just a great, great time in fixing.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you bought sort of last, if you think about where we were closer to 5%, you actually ended up locking in pretty good yields. Now, the one thing I would say is it's hard to time, it's hard to time rates. It might be actually the hardest thing to do is to time the top in yields. That can be a very, very fleeting thing. So it's more about get invested, build a durable portfolio, make sure you have risk in the right buckets. You need some high quality bonds for ballast. You need some riskier bonds for income, right? That all plays together with the equity side and the alt side of your portfolio. All these things need to come together. Yes, cash plays a role, but you will probably miss out on some very good opportunities. We haven't had yields like this in 20 years, right? So are you really going to try to hit the top when you're seeing yields that are as good as they've been in a generation?”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, on a risk adjusted basis, you could say, all right, I had less risk in the money market. And I'm sort of sitting where I was, you know, year ago. But if you're in high quality bonds.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Haven't heard that part on fixed income, but I see your point. I mean, you know, if you just sit forever in the Fed cuts rates, you're going to miss it, right? And so, and I think the consensus right now is, ah, you know, maybe they'll cut a couple times this year, maybe a couple times next year. Things can move pretty quickly on the ground. And, you know, it's one of those things where, you know, yeah, by the time you wake up and decide to move, the market may have already moved past you. I mean, to your point, we were at around four and a half percent almost a year ago. And guess where we're sitting at today? Around four and a half percent, but it's been quite a bumpy ride up and down. And so who knows where we'll be in six months?”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and you also want to be able to have it. So, look, cash is great. We launched money market ETS. Cash plays a role in a portfolio. To your point, it shouldn't be a huge part of the portfolio. You need to get those assets allocated on a risk basis. So whether it's equities, safe bonds, riskier bonds, it's like an orchestra, right? You have your string section, your horn section. They all need to play together. And just sitting on the sidelines, that's okay for a while, but it doesn't make very good music. You need to actually have everything kind of playing its role in the portfolio. And so long term, that is what's going to actually, you know, build your return.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Half file that it's 4.5%. And so there's been a little bit of what I would call, I think, apprehension of giving up that certain or what people view as certain, you know, four and a half to five percent and then moving out. The trick to that is, you know, if you wait too long. Market's going to move past you. And we've”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is. I think what has happened the last couple years is you know money market assets are in the trillions. Well, now that”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But this is the time it takes you to locate that particular bond, and then you have to pay the transaction cost, you know, the bid ask on top of it. So, you know, yes, optically, you could see opportunities all over the place. The question is, are you able to actually move on them and implement them at the right price? And that's where there's a lot of skill involved in fixed income, I think.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get a hold of it, you're sitting in cash. And I've heard you say this many times, you probably should not be sending in cash very long. It's a medium of exchange, right?”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and this is the trick with fixed income. You could see great opportunities, but when you try to act on them, it can be really costly to actually implement. And that cost, or just can you find that bond, right? Relocate it. The search cost, the actual transaction cost.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a choice. And so, my answer to that is we believe in all of the above. We think the best portfolios have elements of both of these things, index and quote-unquote active together, much better portfolio, much more resilient than just sort of suiciding one or the other. Oh, I'm all active or I'm all index, right? So we think both makes a lot of sense. And that's how we sort of design our product set.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They're taking on more risk. Okay, that's fine. You may give some of that back every call it five years, right? What we sort of preach too is, okay, let's get benchmarks that look a little bit closer to the risk you're taking and see what you're actually adding through security selection. So some of its benchmark mispecification, but fixed income markets still are less liquid. They're more fragmented. So yes, there are opportunities there. And so, you know, people often ask me, do you believe in active or quote passive? We call passive index because actually even in index. Yeah, exactly. So wait, Mark?”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the ag, we have AGG, we have the universal, which is iUSB. One of the things that we've been vocal about is which benchmark are you looking at? Because sometimes you'll see a manager buy a bunch of high yield bonds in their portfolio, not all, but like they'll hold a large allocation of high yield bonds, benchmark to the aggregate, which has none, and say, oh, look, I'm beating the aggregate. Now, that's fine.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there are a few things. So, one, we think that all investing is active to a degree, right? You're making decisions. So if you're using ETFs, you're making sort of these broad beta calls and you're deciding, you know, which beta, which sector, what have you. So there's an active choice there in how you build that portfolio. But to your point, strictly active and fixed income, what does that mean? That means that, hey, I'm going out and I'm assembling a bond portfolio. I'm going to compare that to a benchmark and I'm going to see if I beat it.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very much, very much. And I think, and this has been a journey because, you know, you run into this and I've heard you talk about this on your show before. Everybody wants to believe that, you know, if I'm buying this security, I have intent. I did my homework. It matters a great deal. And that may be true for that security. But when you do that a hundred times, some of that starts getting canceled out, right? And so that's when you have to step back and say, all right, if I'm looking at my portfolio holistically, I want a certain beta, I want a certain tilt, I want a certain amount of yield coming from one place or another. What's the most efficient, the cheapest way to do that? And that's, I think people are slowly recognizing that maybe the ETF actually has that utility.”
2025-06-20 · Masters in Business · BlackRock's Global Co-Head of iShares Fixed Income ETFs Stephen Laipply · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source