PIMCO US Treasury bond ETF hits all-time low
ZROZ, a PIMCO ETF allocated to US Treasury bond repayments guaranteed by the US government, has lost 16% of its share price this year. It also lost 21% over the past 12 months, 63% over the past five years, and is down 73% from its March 2020 peak. The terrible results for investors are particularly curious given the seniority of its claims. Specifically, its NYSE-listed ZROZ owns claims on the principal of US Treasury bonds, the largest and most important piece of a US government bond. To be clear, the US government hasn’t defaulted on any sovereign bond issuance since 1933, aside from a $122 million technicality delay in 1979. The largest government in the world guarantees principal repayment of US Treasuries, and ZROZ tracks an index of the present value of those repayments. Still, all buyers of the ETF at any time since its inception in 2009 have lost money, excluding dividends. Even after adjusting for the small quantity of dividends that the ETF ...