Shorter duration is less volatile but it would still have had a dip when inflation peaked during/just after the pandemic. If there's no stable-value fund (e.g., a Money Market Fund offering), that's likely something to push for. Shorter duration TIPS would also be a fine addition, but any bond fund is going to have NAV fluctuations as interest rates change up or down in response to changes in inflation. TIPS behave better than nominals because they will compensate for the inflation change. Only individual T-Notes held to maturity are stable (along with a MMF which is mostly T-Bills), but managing a Treasury ladder for an indefinite (long) period, is just being your own bond fund manager; probably better to just pay the 0.04% ER for BND in that case.I have concern regarding that as the only good bond option and would like to see a shorter duration bond fund or a TIPs option. There are a number of employees who are in the 50’s/60’s that I think could benefit from a less volatile option this last in the working years.
Here's Total Bond Market (BND) vs Short-Term TIPS (VTIP) since 2016 (about 10 years back).
Statistics: Posted by bonesly — Thu May 21, 2026 12:45 am — Replies 13 — Views 534
