It is hard for active bond management to compete with bond index funds and ETFs.
Bond investors did even worse against the Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index, Dalbar says.
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This is far above the 3.32% yield for the Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index.
This might suggest that emerging markets are not yet ready for a bond index at all.
Quite a run compared to the Barclays Aggregate bond Index, up 0.3%.
Vanguard's tracks the Lehman one- to five-year Bond Index, which contains only 44% U.S. Treasuries.
Over the last 10 years, the Barclays Municipal Bond Index posted positive total returns 9 times.
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The Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index is an investment-grade domestic bond index.
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Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Global as of Tuesday, April 19, was 305 basis points over Treasurys.
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Morgan's Emerging Market Bond Index Plus, which is used by many of the world's biggest investment managers.
It makes sense for the investment-grade bond index to do better once its worst credit has dropped out.
Case in point: The Barclays Long-term Government Bond Index has gained over 25% this year through November 30th.
Vanguard Group, known for its low-fee funds, says it plans to launch Total International Bond Index later this year.
Consider that the Barclays Municipal Bond Index (the most popular industry benchmark) is comprised of predominantly longer-maturity, higher-grade debt.
That is enough to gobble nearly one-third of the recent 1.94% yield on the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index.
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Nonetheless, bonds deserve a place in most portfolios, although bond index funds require more careful shopping than their equity cousins.
The Merrill Lynch High Yield Master II Bond Index ended the third quarter down 1.69%, the fourth worst quarterly performance since September 1986.
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The Barclays Aggregate Bond Index gained 6.5% a year while individual bond buyers got stuck with a paltry 0.94% a year in gains.
The fund posted a return of 5.75% through Friday, beating the 2.37% on the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, according to data from Morningstar.
How's this for a contrary indicator: The first exchange-traded bond index funds debuted last Friday and then were followed by Monday's ferocious stock market rally.
Citigroup's World Government Bond Index, which measures total returns on the 21 biggest government bond markets, dipped to its lowest level for over a year.
Year-to-date, it's nearly flat, while the bond index is up 5.9%.
The return on high-yield bonds according to the Merrill Lynch High Yield Bond Index is the highest it has ever been, at 7%, up 2.9% year-to-date.
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Similar to low-cost index mutual funds, ETFs track segments of the market and try to match a benchmark stock or bond index rather than beat it.
The fund had handed investors a return of 3.79% this year through Monday, compared with 7.86% on the Barclays Capital U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, according to Morningstar.
For the Barclays 10-year Municipal Bond Index, the results were similar: total return for the period was 6.133%, with 1.346% coming from price and 4.795% from coupons.
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Mr. Gross's fund returned 4.16% for the year, its worst performance since 2006 and far behind the benchmark Barclays Capital Aggregate Bond Index's 7.84% gain, according to Morningstar.
Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Global.1 Argentina has stated numerous times that it wants to repay its creditors, and it has the cash to do so.
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The bulk of the widely tracked Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index, for example, is loaded down with government debt, which currently suffers from low yields and high valuations.
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