Vanguard Short-Term Federal Fund (VSGBX)

Vanguard Short-Term Federal Fund is a no load taxable bond mutual fund. It focuses its investment in short-term bonds issued by the U.S. government.

Vanguard Short-Term Federal Fund (MUTF: VSGBX)

The Vanguard Short-Term Federal Fund objective is to seek current income while maintaining limited price volatility. The mutual fund invests >80% of assets in short-term bonds issued by the U.S. government and its agencies and instrumentalities. It is expected to maintain a dollar-weighted average maturity of 1 to 4 years.

Fund Profile

• Fund Inception Date: 12/30/1987
• Ticker Symbol: VSGBX
• CUSIP: 922031604
• Beta (3yr): 0.43
• Rank in category (YTD): 57%
• Category: Short Government
• Distribution: 0.55%
• Capital Gains: 0%
• Expense Ratio: 0.20%
• Net Assets: $ 5.7 billion
• Number of Years Up: 24 years
• Number of Years Down: 1 year
• Average Duration: 2.3 years
• Average Maturity: 2.4 years
• Annual Turnover Rate: 411.00%

Updated on 2/22/2013

Ronald M. Reardon is the current fund manager of this Vanguard fund. It was introduced to public in December 1987. This taxable bond fund has total assets of $5.7 billion. The dividend yield is 0.55%. It has low annual expense ratio of 0.20%. The average ratio in the category is 0.86%.

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This VSGBX fund has 4-stars rating and Gold rating from Morningstar. It has 5-year annualized return of 2.8%. The YTD return is -0.13%. The only year the fund returned in negative return since 1987 was in 1994. The best 1-year total return so far was occurred in 2000 with 9.18%.  The 3-year beta risk is 0.43.

The minimum initial investment for brokerage account is $3,000 with $400 minimum subsequent investment. There is no retirement IRA) account available. There are 91 brokerages that provide this fund. This is a no load fund, means there is no management fee and no front-end sales load fee.
The top 3 sectors of this fund as of December 2012 is Treasury/ Agency (87.4%), Government Mortgage-Backed (10.0%) and Short-Term Reserves (2.6%). The benchmark of this fund is Barclays US 1-5 year government index.

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According to the fund prospectus, the primary risks are Income risk, Interest rate risk, Credit risk, Manager risk, etc.

Disclosure: No Position