10 Bond Funds to Buy Now
Bonds have been behaving badly. But the fixed-income market's comeuppance is a good thing for investors looking for better value and more income from their bond funds.
Historically, bonds have offered shelter for portfolios when financial storms touch down on Wall Street. But bonds have not been a haven this year in the grip of surging inflation and fast-rising interest rates. Instead, fixed-income assets ranging from U.S. Treasuries to higher-yielding "junk bonds" have logged double-digit-percentage losses resembling declines suffered by more-volatile stocks.
"A 10% drawdown in the stock market is common, but it is unprecedented for the bond market," says Lawrence Gillum, a fixed-income strategist at LPL Financial.
The bond market pain meter highlights this year's outsize declines and pokes a hole in the myth that bonds never lose money. The Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond index, which tracks the investment-grade bond market and serves as the benchmark for most bond funds, has fallen 10.6% so far this year through July 8 – putting it on track for its
