Description

This fund employs an indexing investment approach designed to track the performance of the Bloomberg US Treasury 1–3 Year Bond Index. This Index includes fixed income securities issued by the U.S. Treasury (not including inflation-protected securities), all with maturities between 1 and 3 years. Like other bond funds, one of the fund’s risks is that increases in interest rates cause the prices of the bonds in the portfolio to decrease; however, such risk is less pronounced in this fund than in funds with longer average durations. A key risk of the fund is the fact that changes in interest rates can eventually lead to a decrease in income for the fund. The fund has a reduced risk of default, since the bonds in the portfolio are backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. Investors with short-term savings goals who are willing to accept some price movement may wish to consider this fund.