Building a Treasury Bond Ladder
This is something I&#x27;ve always wondered: Are treasury bond ladders <i>strictly better</i> than an equivalent treasury bond fund (say VFITX), because the interest rate risk can cause the bond fund to lose value while the treasury bond ladder is guaranteed to not lose value if held to maturation?<p>Or is there some finance black magic that causes treasury bond ladders and treasury bond funds with the same effective maturity to have the same return (ignoring expense ratio for now) after a long period of time?