The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: climber1 on September 20, 2014, 07:13:33 PM
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I am looking through the fund choices in my new employer's 401k. One of the options is the Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund (VBMFX). While I absolutely believe in index investing, knowing the index the fund uses is crucial to making informed decisions. You wouldn't invest in a stock market index without knowing whether it used the S&P 500, S&P Total Market Index, NASDAQ Composite, or god forbid the Dow Jones. However, I can't find good information about the index that the VBMFX uses.
According to the prospectus, they use the Barclays US Aggregate Float Adjusted Index. There isn't much information that I can find online about the index. I can't find a list of the bonds included (which is easy for major stock indicies) or the total market capitalization of the aggregate (i.e. the total value of all of these bonds at current market prices is $XX trillion).
I expect a lot of people here are invested in VBMFX, so I was hoping some of you might have an idea.
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This seems to be a pretty good article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickferri/2011/10/24/total-bond-index-funds-are-not-the-total-bond-market/
Not sure if it goes into the detail you want or not though.