[jterenzio]

I agree for long-term investments a fund might be better (ex. in a retirement account mixed with equity funds) but if you bought those bond funds in the past few years and sold them you might not have made much of a return. For example in the past 1 year the price of VGSH went from 60.83 to 59.87 so you lost over 1% on the price change which cancels out most of the interest yield. My point is that for short-term savings in a rising rate environment this can work better.

[jhfdbkofdcho]

Isn’t that ignoring dividend payouts? This says it’s like -0.2% over the last 12 months including payouts vs -1.6%. No idea how accurate this is but it’s an important correction to just the price returns if you’re talking about holding the shares.

https://www.etfreplay.com/chart_totalreturn.aspx

[jterenzio]

Yes, but the yield on the payouts is only around 2.5% with this fund so the price change has a massive effect on your overall return.

[dmoy]

Yes that is ignoring dividend payouts, which for a bond (edit: bond fund) is a substantial part of the return.