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Conventional wisdom being discussed may not be as meaningful if your situation is not similarly conventional. Bonds v equities and allocation can be very misleading depending on the circumstances of who is presenting and who is reading.
Thanks for all the responses. I don't think I'm going to sell anything, but I will buy into a different bond fund that a member here recommended. My allocation will remain at 75/25. I know I don't have a super strong pucker factor.
I think my favorite recommendation from a while ago (and I don't think it was directly for me) is simply to pick a strategy and stick with it.
If you must choose only from Vanguard, I'd go with Vanguard Core Bond. It's a new fund, but it has a low expense ratio and I think it can beat the bond index pretty easily. I think one fund is enough.
This won't work. It wants a minimum of $5,000,000 to get int.
Okay. Let me push back a little and ask, why then, do standard allocation models (think Boglehead) always include bond funds. And not just a small percentage of them, but at our ages, somewhere between 15-40% bond funds?
I just hate to think that I've been following advice of books, podcasters (many, not all.. there certainly are a few that don't do any bonds) and I'll end up wrong. I've read at least a dozen books and I've tried to follow the methodology. As presented the advice seemed sound so I applied it.
But yeah, I'll tell you. Two of those bond funds are losing monies. Not a lot.. we're talking like a couple hundred dollars.. and they are total index funds too. I understand the theory of bonds and how they work when stocks fall, but at the same time it *feels* wrong to put more money into something that is barely keeping up with the purchase price.
I've tried a few different bond funds over the years. All of them sucked. I gave up on them.
I own Vanguard Core Bond. You want the Investor class not Admiral. I was an initial investor when it first started. The initial per share price was $10.00. Compare that with the current share price and realize you are investing for the income and not capital gains. It is currently $9.95 a share. It has fluctuated to the upper 10.20 plus range to the mid lower $9.80 ish range with the original $10ish being a good frequent point. It was marketed as being for investors who wanted a actively managed bond fund vs Total Bond Index
so far it looks like ftbfx is a head of it over it's short life as well as bit shorter duration making it less interest rate sensitive . .
This is not going to be the year of index funds. Moving forward there are a group of active funds that over time outperform index funds. You know that. The problem is that those hawking active management are not the ones running those funds. The quality funds are relatively low fee, high returns and don't need to market investing in them.
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