Bonds have gotten a lot of attention over the past year and it’s easy to see why when you look at this chart.

What you’re looking at is a relatively smooth ride up until the world collapsed in October of 2008. The investorspeak for that smooth ride is “low volatility”, and it’s one of the main traits of bonds in general, when compared to stocks. But 2008 was anything but usual, and once panic hit the markets bonds collapsed just like stocks. It was a sensible panic in many ways. After all, no one was really sure what the true debt picture was and bonds are nothing more than debt that the debtor has agreed to pay back in a timely, and consistent fashion with interest. But what if the debtor suddenly wasn’t as financially stable as you were led to believe? What if the bond ratings were smoke and mirrors, and your bond wasn’t worth the proverbial paper is was once printed on?

The good and the bad.

So, you see around October, 2008 the steep drop in the prices of these bond funds.

So far, so good. That’s the unusually bad angle. The unusually good side of the picture comes in the months after the market bottomed, around March, 2009.

• BJBHX saw a return of approximately 45% from its March 2009 lows.
• FRHIX saw a return of approximately 15% from its March 2009 lows.
• PRHYX saw a return of approximately 40% from its March 2009 lows.
• DODIX saw a return of approximately 13% from its March 2009 lows.

(More on the individual returns below.)

Bond funds don’t usually produce these kinds of returns, unless they’re junk bonds but they’re (usually) much riskier.

Are bonds still a good buy?

In a sense, all that stellar return was simple the market realizing the world was not coming to an end, and returning back to the norm. The chart above bears this out rather nicely.

So, it would seem that the major upside potential for bonds has played itself out and we have returned to something at least resembling normalcy. But that doesn’t mean that you should avoid bonds. You just shouldn’t be expecting the kinds of return seen in bonds over the past 8 months or so.

Meet the bond funds.

These bond funds come from 3 different categories, which in part explains their diverse returns. These categories are Municipal, High-yield (A.K.A. Junk), and Corporate bonds.

Municipal Bond fund.
My pick for municipal bond fund is the Franklin High Yield Tax-Free Income fund (FRHIX). This fund current yields about the same as 9.4% in a taxable fund (assuming a 35% federal income tax bracket). Tax free municipal bond funds don’t usually see a return of 15%, so this fund has definitely been a winner for those looking for tax free income because they’ve also gotten a very nice return on their investment along with the income.

High-yield bond fund.

Often times, bonds in this category are less than affectionately known as “junk”, but the Artio Global High Income (BJBHX) fund is far from junk. It boasts a 5 star Morningstar rating, and should be viewed more as a speculative, or higher risk bond fund than as junk. It currently sports a 7.4% yield, 1.00% expense ration and it delivered an eye popping (for a bond fund) 45% return from its March 2009 lows.

Another very good high yield bond fund is the T. Rowe Price High-Yield fund (PRHYX), which has a 4-star rating and a yield of 8.5%. It also delivered an eye popping return since its March 2009 lows – 40%. It has a 0.80% expense ratio, which isn’t bad considering its category.

Corporate bond fund.

My choice for corporate bond fund is the 5-star Dodge & Cox Income fund (DODIX). This fund has a 5.22% yield, 0.43% expense ratio and produced a relatively small 13% return. But remember – 13% is usually the realm of high-yield/junk bonds, but this fund is a corporate bond fund that targets only those rated A or better by either Standard & Poor’s Ratings Group or Moody’s.

Conclusion.

It would seem that the wild ride in bonds is over, at least for a while. So you shouldn’t expect such remarkable returns from these bond funds in the foreseeable future, but they are at the top of their class and should still provide a stable income in the years to come.

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2 Responses to “A Tale of 4 High Income Bond Funds.”

1. Daddy Pauld says:

   February 1, 2010 at 11:22 pm

   At this point I would invest only in short term bond funds and a small amount in high yield funds. When rates rise long term funds are taking it on the chin.
2. Mike says:

   February 5, 2010 at 9:45 am

   I agree DP.

   Chances are that we’ll see a spike in inflation in the near future, and as I point out in my post the opportunity for big gains in bond values has passed for now.