To kick off Year 7 of the award-winning Investors First Podcast, hosts Steve Curley, CFA (Co-Managing Principal, 55 North Private Wealth) and Chris Cannon, CFA (CIO/Principal, FirsTrust) sat down with Rick Rieder, one of the most influential voices in fixed income investing.
Rieder serves as BlackRock's Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income, Head of the Fundamental Fixed Income business, and Head of the Global Allocation Investment Team. He is responsible for roughly $2.4 trillion in assets and is a member of BlackRock's Global Executive Committee. His fixed income team includes about 400 people, with another 400-500 across the firm supporting trading, analytics, research, and AI initiatives.
From Betting Lunch Money to Managing Trillions
Growing up in Scarsdale, New York, Rieder developed an early love for sports. Though he admits he "played sports not well," he became obsessed with analyzing outcomes and probabilities. He used to bet his lunch money with classmates on games, studying how teams played on turf versus on the road. "I was pretty maniacal about it," he recalls.
His first real investment came from a company called AMF, which made bowling equipment. "I literally followed that stock. I remember buying it at $12 a share and watching it go to $14.50," Rieder said. He would check the stock price in the newspaper while riding the train with his father.
After earning his BBA in Finance from Emory University and an MBA from Wharton, Rieder joined EF Hutton's training program with 42 others. He never finished the program because Lehman Brothers acquired the firm during the stock market crash. Lehman brought a few trainees into their program, and Rieder ended up doing credit work instead of his original assignment trading mortgages. That began a two-decade run at Lehman Brothers, where he eventually led the Global Principal Strategies team.
After Lehman collapsed in 2008, Rieder founded R3 Capital Partners. The name stands for "Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic," reflecting his passion for urban education. The firm's original premise was to do credit and structured finance while giving 20% of revenues to urban education. Larry Fink and Rob Capito recruited him to BlackRock in May 2009, where he brought 42 people with him.
The Casino Lesson: Make a Little Bit of Money a Lot of Times
Rieder's early gambling taught him a crucial lesson about risk management. He recalls a casino executive explaining how they make money: "You go up and down, you vibrate around the mean, but when anybody hits the down $200, they leave. But invariably somebody's going to hit the down $200."
The takeaway: "Never hit the down $200." This philosophy shapes how he manages fixed income today. "I call it make a little bit of money a lot of times. What a casino is really good at is if you tilt the odds in your favor, let the odds work for you and do it a billion times."
Rather than making big directional bets on interest rates or emerging markets, Rieder prefers to make millions of smaller bets across his global teams and let the odds accumulate in his favor.
2026 Outlook: Gambling vs. Investing
Rieder shared a stark warning about the "gamification" of markets. Years of monetary and fiscal stimulus created an environment where "everything goes up," leading to explosive growth in zero-day options, margin trading, and leveraged ETFs.
"I think the difference between 2025 and 2026 is going to be all about being careful because volatility is going to be higher," he said. "A lot of players are going to get taken out because of leverage, margin, zero-day options. That's a pretty tough business to make money on unless you're selling them."
Where Rieder Is Finding Yield
Rieder revealed his current positioning, which includes a notable tilt toward European bonds. "Because of the cross currency, we can swap European credit back into dollars and get an extra 2.5%," he explained. "If we can buy Europe at 3.5-4% investment grade and swap it back, you get 5.5-6% income."
He also sees opportunities in emerging markets, specifically mentioning Mexico, Indonesia, and South Africa as "generally stable" with attractive yield pickups versus traditional credit.
"The great secret of investing has been if you can create income, it is the whole gig," Rieder said. He pointed to a striking statistic: $1,000 invested in the S&P 500 in 1945 would be worth $7.3 million today with dividends reinvested, but only $500,000 without them.
For 2026, he expects equities to return 10-15% but with "real volatility." His fixed income portfolios are targeting yields of 6.25-6.5%, and with potential rate cuts adding another 2-2.5% in price appreciation, total returns could reach 8.5-9%.
The Housing Crisis Nobody Talks About
Rieder shared sobering statistics on housing affordability. The average age of a first-time home buyer is now 40 years old. For repeat buyers trading up to their second home, the average age is 62, up from 40 just fifteen years ago.
"You can't buy a house, you have an affordability problem, you're not seeing people getting married, fertility rates coming down," he said. He believes housing policy needs to change, noting that every home built puts 3.1 people to work.
A Self-Described "Crazy Tech Geek"
Rieder described himself as someone who has to be "first in line" for new technology. He recounted discovering Apple, Tesla, and Peloton by visiting stores at his local mall. "I literally have to be the first in line when a new piece of technology comes out," he said. "If you find real utility, there's probably a good chance that others have."
He spoke enthusiastically about AI and space technology, saying they will "change the world." His team is actively building AI agents to help with text mining and data assimilation.
About the Investors First Podcast
The Investors First Podcast is a service of CFA Society Orlando, recognized with the CFA Institute's 2020 Impact and Innovation Award. Co-hosts Steve Curley and Chris Cannon are both former presidents of CFA Society Orlando and currently serve on the advisory council.
Past guests include Howard Marks, Annie Duke, Morgan Housel, Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic, Cliff Asness, Aswath Damodaran, Jason Zweig, Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Liz Ann Sonders, and Michael Mauboussin.
Listen to the Full Episode
Listen to the full interview with Rick Rieder, titled "Rieder, Riting & Rithmetic," on the Investors First Podcast website. Also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.