Gemma Wright-Casparius, the sole head of Vanguard’s four actively managed mutual funds with combined assets of around $50 billion, has made some winning trades for the investment giant amidst the pandemic, writes Liz McCormick for Bloomberg.

The veteran fixed-income portfolio manager realized that – with the liquidity gone – older, less-traded Treasuries presented a nice opportunity. They were also a bargain to buy, as the market for them had nearly vanished prior to the pandemic.

Additionally, Wright-Casparius also increased mortgage-debt holdings after feeling that inflation expectations had become too dire.

Both of her wagers have paid off and several of the funds she is leading are successfully beating the majority of their peers in 2020.

Now, Wright-Casparius, who has been in finance for nearly four decades, believes we are looking at a long road to economic revival as the country faces the highest levels of joblessness since the Great Depression.

“The market gave you some lemons early in March, and we tried to capitalize on that,” said Wright-Casparius.

She said that going forward, “there’s still a lot of unanswered questions, especially regarding consumer behavior, so the economic recovery should be slow and gradual.”

Read more about Gemma Wright-Casparius from Bloomberg here.

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