Vanguard Short-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor Shares (VFSTX)
The Vanguard Short-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor Shares (VFSTX) is just like the name implies, a short-term, fixed-income, midquality investment grade securities. The manager of this fund is Bob Auwaerter. He has been a part of this fund since 1983. In May of 2008, Gregory Nassour was appointed to assist Bob and became a co-manager at that time.
This is a fund that has 1,080 different bonds as its asset makeup. The annual turnover of this fund is 49% with a yield of 3.78%. The total assets of this fund are $32.8 billion with 82.5% being in bonds, 16.7% in cash, and 0.7% categorized as other. The bonds on which this fund invests in are between the grades of A and BBB with limited durations of 1 to 3 years.
The performance of this mutual fund was outstanding for a bond investment strategy with a one year return of 14.03%. This outperformed its bench mark being the Barclays US 1-5 year Credit Index which was at 13.52%.
The amount needed to invest in this fund is at a $3,000 minimum and it has an expense ratio of 0.21%. This fund has kept a 4 star rating from Morningstar for the long and short term while still being an above average risk with an above average return.
The volatility factors of this fund are a standard deviation of 4.18 and a mean of 5.16 with an R squared of 31 and a beta of 0.56.
If you are looking for a long term investment in Vanguard funds, the Vanguard Short-Term Tax-Exempt Fund Investor Shares (VFSTX) has shown to be a proven winner. It would be a valued asset as part of any investor’s portfolio.