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Institutional quality1: Discipline that delivers

Your clients deserve exceptional bond strategies. They want expertise rooted in a decades-long record of consistently strong returns. As an advisor, you demand consistency, outperformance, and index ETFs from a global leader. You want Vanguard’s industry edge. That's institutional quality. It's about delivering top-tier fixed income to all your clients. And these are the benefits it delivers:

The first pillar of Vanguard's institutional quality is 'Consistency grounded in smart and repeatable strategies.' A statistic shows that Vanguard has $2.6 trillion in fixed income assets and $1.1 trillion in actively managed bond assets. An icon shows an illustration of a male and female figure standing next to each other. The  ale figure is holding a folder with a large illustrative arrow coming out of the folder that is pointing up. The man and woman look up at the arrow.


Institutional quality fosters consistency. Vanguard’s smart and repeatable active strategies work to deliver smoother performance and index bond funds that tightly track benchmarks.

 

The second pillar of Vanguard's institutional quality is 'Performance and cost multiplier.' A statistic shows that 91% of Vanguard active bond funds and ETFs outperformed their peer group averages over the last decade. An icon shows an illustration of a male figure standing and analyzing illustrative bar charts on a wall.


Institutional quality is industry-leading low costs that let us pursue outperformance without 'performance chasing.' All our active bond funds are in the lowest cost decile of their Morningstar category.5

 

The third pillar of Vanguard's institutional quality is 'Best ideas applied across portfolios.' This means that institutional quality believes in the power of collective wisdom. An icon shows an illustration of two female figures pointing to two illustrative charts on a wall. 


Vanguard’s managers, analysts, and traders share their best ideas and apply them across all funds. It’s our zag to the zig of a star manager—our way for you to minimize the risk of rigid thinking.

The fourth pillar of Vanguard's institutional quality is 'Deep bench of experts.' A statistic shows that Vanguard has more than 40 years of experience in active bond fund management. An icon shows a male and female figure standing next to a large illustrative desktop screen. The screen presents three cogs of a machine, and the male and female figures appear to be fitting the cogs together.


Institutional quality means navigating the complexity of the global bond market with our top talent; more than 200 traders, researchers, and portfolio and risk managers. Their average tenure is 20 years.6

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A full suite of institutional quality fixed income funds and ETFs await your clients today.

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Disclosures and footnotes:

1 “Institutional quality” in this context is meant to convey a level of professional rigor and expertise combined with low costs. 

2 Source: Vanguard, March 31, 2025.

3 Source: Vanguard, March 31, 2025.

4 For the 10-year period ended March 31, 2025, 42 of 46 Vanguard active bond funds outperformed their peer group averages; results will vary for other time periods. Only funds with a minimum 10- year history were included in the comparison (source: LSEG Lipper). Note that the competitive performance data shown represent past performance, which is not a guarantee of future results, and that all investments are subject to risks. For the most recent performance, visit our website at advisors.vanguard.com/investments/all.

5 All competitor fund data sourced from Morningstar Direct as of November 2024. The combination of Morningstar category, investment type, and management style define Vanguard's category. Lowest decile expense ratios are calculated excluding Vanguard funds. Vanguard's updated expense ratios (effective February 1, 2025) were compared to the lowest decile expense ratios in each category. Summing all active fixed income funds that were less than or equal to the lowest decile expense ratio and dividing by total active fixed income funds resulted in 100% of funds in the lowest cost decile.

6 Source: Vanguard, January 31, 2025.

All investing is subject to risk, including the possible loss of the money you invest. 

For more information about Vanguard funds and Vanguard ETFs, visit vanguard.com to obtain a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus. Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information are contained in the prospectus; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Vanguard ETF Shares are not redeemable with the issuing Fund other than in very large aggregations worth millions of dollars. Instead, investors must buy and sell Vanguard ETF Shares in the secondary market and hold those shares in a brokerage account. In doing so, the investor may incur brokerage commissions and may pay more than net asset value when buying and receive less than net asset value when selling.

Bond funds are subject to interest rate risk, which is the chance bond prices overall will decline because of rising interest rates, and credit risk, which is the chance a bond issuer will fail to pay interest and principal in a timely manner or that negative perceptions of the issuer's ability to make such payments will cause the price of that bond to decline.