Bond Ladders Have Lost 15-18% Over Five Years. Here’s What New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Might Do Next.
Key takeaways
- Here’s What New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Might Do Next.
- If you are retired or close to it, that is the line that matters.
- A recent study identified one single habit that doubled Americans’ retirement savings and moved retirement from dream, to reality.
Bond Ladders Have Lost 15-18% Over Five Years. Here’s What New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh Might Do Next. Thinkstock Don Lair Tue, June 2, 2026 at 10:14 PM GMT+7 5 min read On a recent episode of the Retire SMART Podcast titled Bond Vigilantes, the host took aim at one of the most reflexively defended pieces of retirement advice: park older clients in a laddered bond portfolio and call it safe. "A lot of advisors have still been just putting their older clients in particular, oh, we re gonna put you safe and we re gonna put you in this ladder bond portfolio. And that portfolio has lost 15 to 18% over the last 5 years. Yeah. And so it s been disastrous."
If you are retired or close to it, that is the line that matters. The bond sleeve was supposed to be the part of your portfolio you did not have to worry about. According to the host, it quietly cost a lot of retirees real money.
Laddered bond portfolios have lost 15-18% over five years as bonds issued near historic lows in 2020-2021 fell in value when yields rose to 4.5% for 10-year Treasuries, while inflation near 3.8% eroded purchasing power even further.