Active or Passive: How to Align Bond Allocations to Investor Goals

The Issue at Hand by Madison Investments · Jun 2, 2026 · 13m · transcript

When does it make sense to use active management over bond ladders or index funds? And how should investors think about the tradeoff between fees, flexibility, and risk management?

In this episode, Chris Aleman and Mike Sanders explore the debate around active versus passive fixed income investing. The discussion breaks down the tradeoffs between each approach, including duration exposure, reinvestment risk, credit quality, liquidity, flexibility, fees, and the hidden risks embedded in bond indexes. We also explain why fixed income indexing differs fundamentally from equity indexing.

Whether…