GW&K is a recognized market leader and pioneer in municipal bond investing having managed portfolios for clients since our founding in 1974. Our investment approach is active, flexible, and rooted in disciplined research to preserve and enhance principal and income.
Guiding Principles
Active Flexible Approach
Our active strategies have the flexibility to capitalize on opportunities across the yield curve and shift positioning to take advantage of inefficiencies in the municipal bond market. This flexibility is essential to protect and grow both principal and income.
Disciplined & Rigorous Research
We seek the best relative value by conducting bottom-up research examining both bond structure and the underlying credit. Our proprietary process focuses on a select universe of credits and evaluating several factors, including the issuer’s liquidity, financial flexibility, and trends at the state and sector levels.
Diversified Portfolios
We believe that constructing portfolios diversified by issuer, sector, geography, and bond characteristics and focusing on large, liquid, investment grade issuers that are active primary market participants can meaningfully mitigate risk.
GW&K's approach to protecting income and principal
Active bond management is a constant process that demands imagination, discipline and judgment. Knowing that what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow injects a level of dynamism that is both humbling and exhilarating.
John Fox
Co-director of Fixed Income
One of the driving factors of our investment philosophy is that we focus on protecting our client's income and principal. Investors often make the mistake of focusing purely on protecting their principal and keep their bond duration too short. Yet, this subjects the portfolio to significant reinvestment risk and investors can lose out on considerable income in periods of declining interest rates. Our focus is on protecting both income and principal through a total return approach.
Nancy Angell
Co-director of Fixed Income
The muni market is one of the most inefficient marketplaces. It's large, it's fragmented and it's poorly understood. It really begs for active management. And unlike most investors, we actively look for opportunities and use our technical knowledge and extensive experience to take advantage of the market.
Marty Tourigny
Municipal Bond Portfolio Manager
I believe our municipal bond team has unmatched longevity within the industry. Our portfolio managers have worked together at GW&K for over 25 years. Investing at GW&K is a highly collaborative effort. We believe our clients benefit greatly by the learning experience our team has received by having been through numerous interest rate cycles and credit cycles.
Nancy Angell
Co-director of Fixed Income
Our process for choosing credits is very rigorous. It's bottom up and research intensive. We take the entire universe of about 50,000 different issuing authorities and we narrow that down to less than 500. So we focus on quality and are very selective.
Marty Tourigny
Municipal Bond Portfolio Manager
Commentary
GW&K Municipal Bond Strategies Investment Commentary – 4Q 2022
Municipal Bond | Market Commentary
Don’t be fooled by all the hand-wringing over what a terrible year 2022 was for bonds. In fact, long-term investors should be grateful for what transpired.
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