Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
With the open end bond funds off the top of my head I would say about 70% (maybe even more) are in the daily accrual camp, where the NAV is not affected end of month, and you are paid accrued dividends for however long you were in the fund that month. To find out which open end are which you don't need to read any prospectus. You can just go to Yahoo finance and click on the historical prices of the fund in question. Then scroll through a few months preferably longer and you will find the dividend payout there too and can see if the NAV remains about the same or adjusted downward by around the amount of the dividend. I do that all the time when researching bond funds to trade/invest. I stay clear of the ones where the dividends aren't accrued daily.
For someone trying to save effort, it seems like you're going through a lot of work
Just go to the Bloomberg page for the fund of interest. Its data table has a whole section labeled "Dividends for ", including Dividend Type (e.g. Daily Accrual) and Dividend Frequency (e.g. Monthly).
the kid who picked up the phone @ Vanguard made a mistake. Vanguard does best to train them, but you know how it goes, plus being a bogle-funded truly mutual fund company (i.e. cheap) they can't really get good help like the loaded institutions can - a fact of life... his answer applied to some funds, but not to the open end fund that you described. The related ETF however could have a different dividend accrual rule.
And (frankly, to my surprise) it does. From the ETF share class prospectus: "For holders of the Fund’s ETF Shares, income dividends are declared and distributed monthly. "
Junkster: "To find out which open end are which you don't need to read any prospectus. You can just go to Yahoo finance and click on the historical prices of the fund in question."
Yes! I wanted to highlight this statement, 'cause at least some prospectuses are not clear on which method is being used. And I think that's part of the reason there's confusion about it.
the kid who picked up the phone @ Vanguard made a mistake. Vanguard does best to train them, but you know how it goes, plus being a bogle-funded truly mutual fund company (i.e. cheap) they can't really get good help like the loaded institutions can - a fact of life... his answer applied to some funds, but not to the open end fund that you described. The related ETF however could have a different dividend accrual rule.
And (frankly, to my surprise) it does. From the ETF share class prospectus: "For holders of the Fund’s ETF Shares, income dividends are declared and distributed monthly. "
Thanks msf for the tip on Bloomberg. See, something good has come out of this contentious thread (in no small part due to me) I learned something new. I have never used Bloomberg quotes. I will add it in my research. However because of my obsession to detail I will still want to check my long hand Yahoo historical prices just to verify. As to the above, unless I am mistaken (which I often am) all closed end bond funds and ETFs pay monthly. In fact daily dividend accrual is only a feature of the various open end bond funds (and of course money market funds)
Comments
Just go to the Bloomberg page for the fund of interest. Its data table has a whole section labeled "Dividends for ", including Dividend Type (e.g. Daily Accrual) and Dividend Frequency (e.g. Monthly).
Here's the page for VBMFX (even the URL is simple): http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/VBMFX:US
"For holders of the Fund’s ETF Shares, income dividends are declared and distributed monthly. "
Yes! I wanted to highlight this statement, 'cause at least some prospectuses are not clear on which method is being used. And I think that's part of the reason there's confusion about it.