A TIPS Ladder in a Single ETF? (Northern Trust Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETFs)

A reader writes in, asking:

“Have you encountered the ‘Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder’ ETFs from Northern Trust? It looks to me that they create an entire TIPS ladder for you, and all you have to do is just buy a single fund. Too good to be true?”

Yes, the ETFs in question do create an entire TIPS ladder for you. But there is a catch. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Firstly, I want to note that these are very different from iShares’ target-maturity TIPS ETFs. The ETFs from iShares each buy TIPS maturing in a single year (i.e., each of the ETFs could serve as a single rung in a ladder, rather than being a ladder on its own).

In contrast, the Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETFs from Northern Trust each own an entire TIPS ladder (with the final year being the year in the fund’s name). Here are the options so far:

• Northern Trust 2030 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPA)
• Northern Trust 2031 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPE)
• Northern Trust 2035 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPB)
• Northern Trust 2036 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPF)
• Northern Trust 2045 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPC)
• Northern Trust 2046 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPG)
• Northern Trust 2055 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPD)
• Northern Trust 2056 Inflation-Linked Distributing Ladder ETF (TIPH)

They started with the 2030, 2035, 2045, and 2055 funds last year, and added the other funds this year. It seems likely that next year they’ll launch another four funds (i.e., 2032, 2037, 2047, 2057).

The idea is that, for each fund, as the bonds mature or make interest payments, the fund distributes cash. And when the final bonds mature, the fund distributes its remaining assets and then closes. So, yes, each of these ETFs really is an entire TIPS ladder via a single fund.

And they’re low-cost as well, with expense ratios of just 0.10%.

The catch: the distribution policy makes no sense (at least in my opinion). The funds distribute cash when bonds pay interest or mature, which makes sense. But they also distribute the inflation adjustments as they occur. What that means is that, in order for your holding to actually go up along with inflation (which is generally the idea of a TIPS ladder), you’d have to manually reinvest the distributions that are the result of inflation adjustments. And you can’t just set it to automatically reinvest all distributions, otherwise you’d be reinvesting the other distributions as well.

So these ETFs are much less work to set up than a DIY ladder of individual TIPS, but they involve ongoing management work, whereas a ladder of individual TIPS is generally just left alone once it has been put it place.

They’re so close to being a major convenience upgrade. But as it stands, they’re just trading work now for work later. For some people that might still be a desirable tradeoff. For me, it puts them in the “neat idea, but no thank you” category.

One other point: so far, the funds are tiny, in terms of assets managed. I hope they catch on. But I hope even more that somebody eventually creates a product that really is a set-it-and-forget-it TIPS ladder all in a single fund.