Hitting Home Runs with Bonds

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The New Home Run King!!

Barry Bonds was all the talk with his record setting home runs at 756, 1 better than the great Hank Aaron. Barry Bonds now stands alone. Bonds set this record on 8/7/2007 in San Francisco against Washington.

Well, one Bond fund that doesn’t stand alone but ranks in the top 1/4 of all Corporate Bond funds is the Westcore Plus Bond Fund, symbol WTIBX. From our All About Bonds – Part 1 series we know that corporate bonds are higher risk and provide corporations to pay for large projects such as new plants, acquisitions and other major investments.

Another top notch Bond fund is the Loomis Sayles Bond Fund, symbol LSBRX. Manager Dan Fuss has done an excellent job with this bond fund.

These two Bond funds you would hold for down markets and is a smart part of asset allocation. When your equity (stock) mutual funds are reacting with big swings due to market ups and downs both these funds in your portfolio will help balance it and provide you some peace of mind.

These Bond funds are going to hold their value when we have a down turn in the market, but they won’t go up as much when you see your equity (stock) mutual funds go up.  You’ll also see the value of your Bond funds rise as interest rates go lower.

But again, even though these Bond funds are considered aggressive as far as Bond funds go, they also provide balance for our over all portfolio. If you own an all equity (stock) mutual funds portfolio and you get sick when you see the value of your portfolio plummet with wild ups and downs in the market, then that means you should be looking at Bond funds to help you not feel so sick and panicky during wild markets.

Asset Allocation, Asset Allocation, Asset Allocation. I’ll provide a definition on this site soon.

Below are the stats on the Westcore Plus Bond Fund (Morningstar):

Westcore Plus Bond Fund


Below are the stats on the Loomis Sayles Bond Fund (Morningstar):

Loomis Sayles Bond Fund