Taxable Bond Medalist Funds

Index funds generally don’t try to beat the market by opportunistically buying or selling securities. Rather, they invest the assets of the fund or ETF to mirror the construction of an index, giving investors a way to gain exposure to a specific part of the markets. Index funds generally have lower relative costs compared with actively managed offerings. Here we highlight taxable bond index funds and ETFs that also received a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Morningstar Medalist Rating by our analysts. The Morningstar Medalist Rating is the forward-looking assessment of an investment strategy. The rating is on a five-tier scale running from Gold to Negative. For actively managed funds, Morningstar assigns Gold, Silver, and Bronze ratings to vehicles expected to add value over the long term when compared with a relevant Morningstar Category index after accounting for fees and risk. For passive strategies, funds and ETFs with the top ratings are expected to deliver alpha that exceeds the lesser of the category median net alpha, or zero, over the long term.