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Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund has a variety of classes and ticker symbols and, as of December 31, 2018, was the world's largest bond fund with $204 billion under management.
The below table shows the five different share classes of the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, the size of each class, and its respective ticker symbol:
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund - Size by Investor Class
On this slide, you can see the meager Vanguard bond fund returns. Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, VBTLX, achieved a total return of 0.3% in 2015, 2.5% in 2016, and 3.1% year to date (9/30/17). There are many reasons for the weak investment returns, but three factors drive this underperformance:
1) Overdiversification: Since this Vanguard bond fund it so big, it owns over 8,000 bonds. While there are many bonds worth owning, there are not 8,000. There's no reason investors need exposure to 8,000 bonds when owning a fixed income portfolio. Bonds typically have lower risk and price volatility vs. stocks, so the overdiversification bond funds provide is not necessary for bond investors. Within the Vanguard portfolio are some perfectly good bonds; however, the good ones get drowned out by thousands of other bonds that dilute the Vanguard bond fund returns.
2) Low-yielding asset classes often highly sensitive to interest rates: VBTLX is dominated by bonds that are the most sensitive to fluctuations in interest rates: US Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. These bonds are known as 'rates' investments, with bond prices going up and down based on what happens to interest rates. In addition, due to their perceived lower credit risk than corporate bonds, bonds such as US Treasurys pay investors a lower coupon than a corporate bond with a similar maturity.
3) High hidden fees: Investors have been misled by the mutual fund industry, which claims 'low-cost' index funds such as Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund are truly low cost. As shown in our fixed income investing blog, Vanguard and other bond funds are anything but low cost, as these bond funds rapidly turn over their portfolios and incur significant trading costs. The extent of these bond fund costs are not disclosed by the fund and are not included in a bond fund's expense ratio, a number that is vastly understated and misrepresents the true costs of bond fund investing. In the end, Vanguard bond fund returns are negatively impacted by these bond transaction fees; however, investors in these funds never know how much.
Many investors believe a bond's yield is the only return on which an investor should focus. We have shown how owning a select portfolio of individual corporate bonds can enable investors to achieve returns that are higher than a bond's yield to maturity.
UPDATE: This video was originally recorded in 2017. Since then, we have updated the returns achieved by our individual corporate bond recommendations here. We compare our returns to bond fund returns of BlackRock's iShares bond ETFs, a large competitor to Vanguard bond funds and Vanguard bond ETFs. We discuss additional reasons for low Vanguard bond fund returns in this blog post.
Below is a summary of the content contained in the video that discusses Vanguard bond fund returns:
Unfortunately, when most retail investors invest in fixed income, they invest in bond funds and bond ETFs, which often have poor investment returns.
The Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, is an example of a large bond fund with poor returns.
BondSavvy Subscriber Benefit
BondSavvy's corporate bond recommendations have achieved higher returns than bond funds. Investing in individual corporate bonds also offers investors greater transparency, lower fees, and the ability to tailor a portfolio to investors' returns objectives. Get StartedVanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund has a variety of classes and ticker symbols and, as of December 31, 2018, was the world's largest bond fund with $204 billion under management.
The below table shows the five different share classes of the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, the size of each class, and its respective ticker symbol:
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund - Size by Investor Class
| Class | Ticker | Size ($BB) |
| Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Investor Shares | VBMFX | $4.3 |
| Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Admiral Shares | VBTLX | $88.3 |
| Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF | BND | $36.5 |
| Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Institutional Shares | VBTIX | $40.7 |
| Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Institutional Plus Shares | VBMPX | $19.4 |
| Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Institutional Select Shares | VTBSX | $14.8 |
On this slide, you can see the meager Vanguard bond fund returns. Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund, VBTLX, achieved a total return of 0.3% in 2015, 2.5% in 2016, and 3.1% year to date (9/30/17). There are many reasons for the weak investment returns, but three factors drive this underperformance:
1) Overdiversification: Since this Vanguard bond fund it so big, it owns over 8,000 bonds. While there are many bonds worth owning, there are not 8,000. There's no reason investors need exposure to 8,000 bonds when owning a fixed income portfolio. Bonds typically have lower risk and price volatility vs. stocks, so the overdiversification bond funds provide is not necessary for bond investors. Within the Vanguard portfolio are some perfectly good bonds; however, the good ones get drowned out by thousands of other bonds that dilute the Vanguard bond fund returns.
2) Low-yielding asset classes often highly sensitive to interest rates: VBTLX is dominated by bonds that are the most sensitive to fluctuations in interest rates: US Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. These bonds are known as 'rates' investments, with bond prices going up and down based on what happens to interest rates. In addition, due to their perceived lower credit risk than corporate bonds, bonds such as US Treasurys pay investors a lower coupon than a corporate bond with a similar maturity.
3) High hidden fees: Investors have been misled by the mutual fund industry, which claims 'low-cost' index funds such as Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund are truly low cost. As shown in our fixed income investing blog, Vanguard and other bond funds are anything but low cost, as these bond funds rapidly turn over their portfolios and incur significant trading costs. The extent of these bond fund costs are not disclosed by the fund and are not included in a bond fund's expense ratio, a number that is vastly understated and misrepresents the true costs of bond fund investing. In the end, Vanguard bond fund returns are negatively impacted by these bond transaction fees; however, investors in these funds never know how much.
BondSavvy Subscriber Benefit
BondSavvy subscribers who buy bonds online know exactly the fees they pay. The same cannot be said for bond fund investors given the high hidden trading fees bond funds incur but don't disclose. Get StartedMany investors believe a bond's yield is the only return on which an investor should focus. We have shown how owning a select portfolio of individual corporate bonds can enable investors to achieve returns that are higher than a bond's yield to maturity.