Are Bonds Failing Retirees? This Advisor Thinks So

Raymond Bridges, CPA, Managing Member of Bridges Capital, shares how the Bridges Capital Tactical ETF (BDGS) often takes contrarian positions to benefit its retiree investors. Bridges digs in under the hood of the strategy, including why it’s a great replacement for bonds in a portfolio, in this episode of Behind the Ticker with host Brad Roth, CIO of Thor Funds. 

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Episode Highlights

• The core idea of BDGS: Retirees drawing down money and younger investors building it up need completely different risk management, so Raymond Bridges built BDGS around that distinction. The fund has held as much as 80% cash and never gone above 60% equities since its launch in 2023, driven by Bridges’ belief that we’re still working off a decade of distorted, post-COVID liquidity. A client down 5-7% while the market drops 30% won’t panic and won’t wreck their own retirement. Indeed, that’s the whole point.

• How it actually trades: BDGS scales in and out using market breadth across four indexes, buying in small tranches when breadth strengthens under weakness, not when the crowd is chasing a rally. The buying discipline is pure mean reversion: top market-cap names trading below their averages, even if that means passing up on names like AMD or Intel for long stretches. It’s deliberately counter-trend on the way in while riding trends on the way up, with a minimum 10% cash cushion at all times.

• Why it matters for portfolios: Bridges judges the fund by the Sortino ratio, not Sharpe, because it only penalizes downside volatility, the risk that actually threatens a retiree. His pitch to advisors is bold: use BDGS to replace the bond sleeve in a 60/40, not just bolt it on as another equity fund. And with ETF launch costs dropping from millions to roughly $250K a year, he sees smaller firms with real processes finally getting a shot at an industry once owned by Vanguard and BlackRock.

To learn more about the Bridges Capital ETF, go here.

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