Fixed Income

Philosophy and Approach

We believe a relative value sector and security selection approach implemented by asset specialists within a disciplined research and risk management framework can produce superior long-term performance. Our teams of asset specialists combine quantitative analysis with in-depth qualitative research to create the disciplined investment process used to discover relative value within and between sectors.

We apply technology to the large and fragmented fixed income market to build an information advantage. This information advantage focuses our efforts toward achieving a skill advantage. We build portfolios one bond at a time with a critical review of each security by experienced managers. We focus on being consistently right on many small decisions and avoid allocating significant risk to big decisions.

We focus our disciplined relative value process on sector and security selection.

ING Investment Management follows an active sector rotation and issue selection style for the ING Core Fixed Income Strategy. We believe that by identifying temporary market anomalies ahead of consensus we can capture value opportunities. Therefore, we have developed a disciplined process to identify securities and sectors priced at a discount to their intrinsic value. We frequently take advantage of sector rotation, issue selection, and relative value swaps, and rarely make major strategy moves in our interest rate and yield curve view.

Since fixed income as an asset class rewards discipline, risk control is essential. We control portfolio risk by limiting duration risk relative to the benchmark and through careful sector and security diversification. Successful risk management looks beyond the benchmark comparison and allocates risk in the portfolio in a manner that is transparent, intentional and consistent with strategy. We constantly evaluate whether we are being sufficiently compensated by the market for our active risks.

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