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Advisor Playbook

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Advisor Playbook

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We expect bonds to do well across a range of environments. Amid uncertainty, investors, especially those with meaningful cash allocations, should consider taking advantage of bonds’ attractive valuations and defensive properties.

Advisor Playbook Quarterly: Staying Ahead of the Curve

Fixed Income Has Delivered Attractive Returns After Yields Reset Higher

What the Chart Shows:

The Morningstar category performance of different fixed income categories has been positive and significant over the past few years despite elevated interest rate volatility.

What it Means for Investors:

Today’s starting yields are similar to those offered at the beginning of this chart’s period, indicating that investors could stand to benefit from attractive return potential across fixed income sectors. However, risk and returns across fixed income sectors can vary significantly so it is important to be diversified and active.

Morningstar Category Performance (9/30/2023 – 12/31/2025)

As of 31 December 2025. Source: Morningstar, PIMCO. Past performance is not a guarantee nor a reliable indicator of future performance.
Morningstar Categories represent the following US Morningstar Categories: Muni Long (Municipal National Long Category); Core-Plus (Intermediate Core-Plus); HY Muni (High Yield Municipal); Short-Term (Short-Term Bond); Global USD H (Global Bond- USD Hedged); Corporate (Corporate Bond); Multisector (Multisector Bond); EM (Emerging Markets Bond); High Yield (High Yield Bond); Bank Loan (Bank Loan). Cash is represented by the FTSE 3 Month Treasury Bill Index.
The exhibit above seeks to illustrate the performance across various fixed income Morningstar categories from one year prior to the first fed cut to today, which is defined as the period beginning 30 September 2023 through 31 December 2025.

Yields Across Most Fixed Income Sectors Are High vs. Recent History

What the Chart Shows:

Current yields (solid bars) versus yields from over four years ago (shaded bars) across fixed income sectors. Current yields are much higher in every sector.

What it Means for Investors:

Yields are still near decade highs across most fixed income sectors. The combination of high starting yields and the potential for rates to fall creates an attractive outlook for a wide variety of bonds.

Today, yields are at a much stronger starting point when compared to Q4 2021

As of 31 December 2025. SOURCE: Bloomberg, PIMCO. Index proxies for asset classes displayed are as follows: Agency MBS: Bloomberg MBS Fixed Rate Index, Munis: Bloomberg Municipal Bond Index, HY Munis: Bloomberg HY Muni Bond Index, Core: Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Index, Global Core: Bloomberg Global Aggregate ex-US Index (USD Hedged), HY Credit: Bloomberg U.S. Corporate High Yield Index, EM: JPMorgan EMBI Global, IG Credit: Bloomberg US Credit Index; Private Credit: Market estimates for yield; Asset Based Finance: Yield is based on the average unlevered loan yields as observed by PIMCO.
* Securitized Credit computed as average of CLOs, CMBS, and ABS from JPMorgan and Bloomberg.
** Municipal yields are the taxable equivalent yield, adjusted by the highest marginal tax rate (40.8%). Unadjusted IG Muni index yield is 3.6% with a change of 251bps compared to 12/31/2021 levels, the unadjusted HY Muni Index yield is 5.5% with a change of 277bps compared to 12/31/2021 levels.
*** Yields for Asset Based Finance and Private CRE Debt are as of 30 September 2025 and reflect the latest available data.
1 The yield to worst is the yield resulting from the most adverse set of circumstances from the investor’s point of view; the lowest of all possible yields.

Bonds Are Different: The Active Advantage

What the Chart Shows:

The chart shows the percentage of active funds within each Morningstar category that outperform the median passive fund over the 10-year period ending 31 December 2025.

What it Means for Investors:

While a passive approach may be sensible for equities, investors should consider active fixed income strategies, which have consistently delivered better outcomes than passive fixed income strategies

Percentage of active funds within each category that outperform the median passive fund (10-year return)

*Combines the Morningstar U.S. Fund Intermediate Core and Intermediate Core-Plus categories.
As of 31 December 2025. Source: Morningstar Direct and PIMCO. Past performance is not a guarantee or a reliable indicator of future results. Based on Morningstar U.S. ETF and U.S. Open-End Fund categories (institutional shares only). To avoid potential survivorship bias, we included funds and ETFs that were live at the beginning of each sample period but were liquidated or merged before the end of the period. Chart is provided for illustrative purposes and is not indicative of the past or future performance of any PIMCO product.

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