Overview
Inception
Date
11.01.2020
Account
Minimum
$250,000
Philosophy
- Multi-faceted process adds value
- Conservative approach to fixed income management
- Bond market inefficiencies offer opportunities for selective investors
- Fundamental research drives security selection
Process
Top-down
- Duration management
- Yield curve analysis
- Sector analysis
Bottom-up
- Proprietary analysis
- Fundamental research
- Security selection
Performance
| Term | QTR | YTD | 1 Year | 3 Years | 5 Years | Since Inception1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extended Intermediate National Municipal SMA (Gross) | 1.60 | 1.10 | 5.16 | 3.39 | 1.20 | 1.33 |
| Extended Intermediate National Municipal SMA (Net) | 1.23 | 0.35 | 3.61 | 1.86 | -0.30 | -0.17 |
| ICE BofA 3-15Y Municipal Bond | 1.62 | 1.06 | 5.27 | 3.60 | 1.17 | 1.47 |
1The performance inception date is 11.01.2020. The benchmark is the ICE BofA 3-15Y Municipal Index. Performance is preliminary and is annualized for periods longer than one year. Net of fees performance returns are presented net of the SMA bundled fee, which includes all charges for trading costs, advisory services, portfolio management, custody and other administrative fees. Gross of fees performance returns reflect the deduction of trading costs: a client’s return will be reduced by the management fees and other expenses it may incur. Investment management fees are described in SCM's Form ADV 2A. Performance reflects the reinvestment of interest income and dividends and realized capital gains. The performance presented represents past performance and is no guarantee of future results. Performance is compared to an index, however, the volatility of an index varies greatly and investments cannot be made directly in an index. Market conditions vary from year to year and can result in a decline in market value due to material market or economic conditions. Performance for periods greater than one year is annualized. Please refer to the GIPS Composite Report in the factsheet linked below for additional disclosures. Sources: Morningstar Direct; Sterling Capital Management Analytics.
Extended Intermediate National Municipal SMA
Materials
SMA
Insights
07.14.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Case for Compounding
In the current market, traditional characteristics of classic long term investing, such as sustainable earnings growth and its byproduct of paying increasingly higher dividends over time, appear to have been pushed into the corner. This month, we show how these stocks that have tended to trade at a premium to the market currently trade at a discount. Moreover, stocks with these characteristics, while challenged from a performance basis recently, have shown an ability to outperform over long periods of time.
06.23.2026
Gregory Zage, CFA®, James Kerin, CFA®
The Sterling Capital VAULT: The U.S. Consumer
The Fixed Income team's insight on how the economy is impacting high-income vs. low-income U.S. consumers.
05.11.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
One of the beauties of dividend growth investing is that companies with a history of not only sharing their earnings through dividend payments to their shareholders, but increasing those dividends provides valuable insight into their priorities and ability to pay amounts that can grow over time. But despite higher corporate earnings, the percentage shared with their shareholders has been falling over the past several years. If there is value in scarcity with dividend growth scarce, companies that not only pay dividends, but growth them faster than the market appear to have a valuable quality.
04.29.2026
The Sterling Capital VAULT: AI Datacenter Risk
The Fixed Income team's insight on AI and related datacenter buildout.
04.13.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Revisionist History
This month Empirical Research provided additional data around the uniquely strong period for the performance of earnings revisions that couple with their observation that recent price momentum has been the strongest in seven decades. The 2020’s have seen the strongest performance for earnings revisions since the 1980’s. Our observation is that the uniquely strong performance of earnings revisions has been reflected in higher valuations for these securities with attractive valuations in more stable and consistent earnings growers.
03.11.2026 • Charles Wittmann, CFA®
The Lead - Signposts for Quality Improvement
This month we look back in history for signs when quality stocks began to experience relative performance improvement trends. We identify two themes and provide a perspective on the current environment. Finally, we assess current valuations of higher quality stocks versus lower quality across a variety of metrics.
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