Invesco looks at income portfolio strategies

The CBOE Volatility Index, otherwise known as the Wall Street’s fear gauge, is coming off its most volatile week since April.

For investors hesitant to ride out the recent wild swings, Invesco senior portfolio manager John Burrello sees income funds that employ options-based strategies as a sound game plan. His reasoning: They have more structural protection embedded in them.

“Options are not reliant on the correlations of stocks with another… asset class,” Burrello told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “They can have a more reliable form of downside protection, and also can offer income that’s not interest rate sensitive.”

Burrello, who serves on Invesco‘s global asset allocation team, suggests that should serve as an advantage to investors due to the rate cutting cycle. Policymakers are expected to cut rates by a quarter point later this month, according to the consensus on Wall Street.

“Adding income without reliance on the Fed is becoming more and more important. I think that’s driving some growth in the space,” he noted.

Invesco’s income-generated funds include Invesco QQQ Income Advantage ETF, Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Income Advantage ETF and the Invesco MSCI EAFE Income Advantage ETF.

So far this year, the Invesco MSCI EAFE Income Advantage ETF has gained about 14%, while the firm’s QQQ Income Advantage ETF is up about 6%. They’re also up about two percent over the past week.

Meanwhile, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight Advantage ETF is virtually flat for the year.

According to Burrello, there’s a “very large tailwind” for options and defined outcome strategies could last for many years.

“The demand themes of income and defense against equity drawdowns should never go out of style,” Burrello said.  “Those are things that every portfolio likely needs at some point throughout someone’s life. They might want to reduce risk to equities. They also might want to add income that’s a diversifying source, and, again, not relying on interest rates.”

Burrello finds the option income space has attracted a lot of new product launches thay could make it challenging for investors to understand the differences.

His advice: Look for option income ETFs managed by institutional-grade options professionals, beware of unsustainable yields with potentially high fees.