8 Top-Performing Intermediate Core Bond Funds

Intermediate core bond funds often form the backbone of investors’ fixed-income portfolios. Morningstar analysts have given the following eight funds their high-conviction

, meaning they believe the funds will continue to outperform their peers.

To screen for the top-performing funds in this category, we looked for those with the best returns over the last one-, three-, and five-year periods. All names that passed the screen were actively managed.

• Allspring Core Bond Fund WTRIX
• Columbia Bond Fund CBFYX
• Fidelity Investment Grade Bond Fund FBNDX
• Guggenheim Core Bond Fund GIUSX
• John Hancock Investment Grade Bond Fund JIGEX
• JPMorgan Core Bond Fund JCBUX
• Neuberger Berman Core Bond Fund NRCRX
• Vanguard Core Bond Fund VCOBX

Over the past 12 months, the average fund in the intermediate core bond

returned 6.9%. On an annualized basis, intermediate core bond funds have climbed 5.15% over the past three years and 0.36% over the past five. Meanwhile, the Morningstar US Core Bond Index has risen 7.02% over the past 12 months, 5.06% per year over the past three years, and 0.32% per year over the past five.

Intermediate-term core bond portfolios invest primarily in investment-grade US fixed-income issues including government, corporate, and securitized debt, and hold less than 5% in below-investment-grade exposures. Their durations (a measure of interest-rate sensitivity) typically range between 75% and 125% of the three-year average of the effective duration of the Morningstar Core Bond Index.

Screening for the Top-Performing Intermediate Core Bond Funds

We looked at returns from the past one, three, and five years using Morningstar Direct. We screened for open-end and exchange-traded funds in the top 33% of the category using their lowest-cost primary share classes for those periods. We also filtered for funds with a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze, Silver, or Gold which are fully covered by a Morningstar analyst. We excluded funds with assets under $100 million. This left eight investments.

Because the screen was created with the lowest-cost share class for each fund, some may be listed with share classes that are not accessible to individual investors outside of retirement plans, or they may be aimed at institutional investors and require large minimum investments. The individual investor versions of those funds may carry higher fees, reducing returns to shareholders. Medalist Ratings may differ among the share classes of a fund.

Allspring Core Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Bronze
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★

The $4.7 billion fund has gained 7.24% over the past year, while the average fund in its category is up 6.90%. The Allspring fund, launched in November 2012, has climbed 5.38% over the past three years and 0.47% over the past five.

Co-managers Maulik Bhansali and Jarad Vasquez have collaborated on the strategy since October 2017, each bringing more than two decades of industry experience. This disciplined process, which relies on strong relative value calls, ensures consistency and repeatability. The managers invest across sectors included in the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index, such as Treasuries, securitized debt, and corporate bonds, while avoiding derivatives and non-US-dollar bonds. Liquidity is paramount. The portfolio features high-quality securities and limits below-investment-grade debt to 5% of assets.

The fund has delivered compelling long- and short-term absolute and risk-adjusted results. Over Bhansali and Vasquez’s tenure since November 2017 (their first full month), the fund’s 1.5% annualized gain through April 2024 outpaced both category peer median and the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index. The information ratio (a measure of excess return over excess standard deviation versus the benchmark) ranked in the top quartile. Historically, this strategy holds up better than category peers during the credit-driven selloffs as seen during the pandemic-driven drawdown in March 2020. However, absent these opportunities, the strategy’s approach can produce stretches of marketlike results.

Columbia Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Bronze
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★

Over the past year, the Columbia Threadneedle fund rose 8.07%, while the average fund in its category rose 6.90%. The fund, launched in January 1986, has climbed 6.18% over the past three years and 0.52% over the past five.

The fund differs from its Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index and many of its intermediate core bond Morningstar Category peers by virtue of its near category-leading securitized allocation. That includes exposure to agency and nonagency mortgage-backed securities and more-niche types of asset-backed securities, which tend to have an outsize impact here. Duration is kept within a year of The Aggregate Index, which is a wide band that the managers have used liberally in the past. Unlike its Columbia Total Return Bond sibling, debt rated below investment-grade is hardly ever used here.

The managers are comfortable making big changes to the portfolio in a short amount of time, especially compared with competitors who consciously manage relative to The Aggregate Index. That more active nature, combined with its unique portfolio, has led to higher-volatility returns than the category norm, and it may not be a consistent performer in similar market environments. For example, while it lagged in 2022, it outperformed in the first quarter of 2021, both periods characterized by rising interest rates. But the managers’ active decisions are disciplined, and over time, they’ve made more good decisions than bad ones. This fund isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a strong choice for those who can tolerate above-average volatility.

Fidelity Investment Grade Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Gold
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★

The $12 billion fund has gained 7.17% over the past year, while the average fund in its category is up 6.90%. The Fidelity fund, launched in August 1971, has climbed 5.37% over the past three years and 0.65% over the past five.

Thoughtful succession planning helps to keep Fidelity Investment Grade Bond among the best core bond offerings.

Collaboration is central to the strategy’s process. The team adjusts sector allocations and yield-curve positioning when they identify pockets of value in various sectors. In addition to its core opportunity set of Treasuries, investment-grade corporate credit, and agency mortgages, the strategy may hold up to 10% in below-investment-grade debt, though exposure here has been 5% or less in recent years. Still, a persistent BBB corporate credit overweighting can provide volatility at times. Strict guardrails around duration, a measure of interest-rate risk, help to limit that volatility when there are big moves in interest rates; the team often keeps the portfolio’s duration within one third of a year of its Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index’s.

Thanks to nimble sector calls over the trailing decade through April 2025, the mutual fund’s Z shares’ 2.1% annualized return outpaced its index and placed in the top decile of distinct intermediate core bond Morningstar Category peers with a similarly strong volatility-adjusted return, as measured by Sharpe ratio.

Guggenheim Core Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Silver
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★★

Over the past year, the Guggenheim fund rose 7.57%, while the average fund in its category rose 6.90%. The fund, launched in January 2013, has climbed 5.71% over the past three years and 0.60% over the past five.

The managers’ approach of exploiting inefficiencies among out-of-benchmark bonds has historically meant a large, eclectic mix of securitized fare. Although the fund carried 8.5% in collateralized loan obligations as of year-end 2024, reflecting a long stretch of derisking and trimming based on valuation decisions; for example, it had 37% in the sector as of March 2017. It held 1.5% in debt rated BB or lower at year-end 2024, down from 28% at the end of 2014.

An earlier period of derisking helped avoid even bigger trouble during 2022’s selloff, but in a rare stumble, exposure to Treasuries and rate-sensitive corporates still drove the fund’s poor showing that year relative to its Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index and most of its (distinct) intermediate core bond Morningstar Category peers.

The good news is that 2022 was unusual, and better conditions helped in both 2023 and 2024. Treasury yields have bounced around across that stretch, which didn’t help much, but the team took advantage of the income from its securitized assets while still trimming risk. Those kinds of pivots have been a big help overall. Cutting risk in 2018 and 2019 made the fund one of the best performers during the early-2020 pandemic-driven selloff, for example. Quickly adding risk back thereafter helped produce top-decile returns for 2020 as a whole.

Overall, the strategy has produced peer-beating long-term returns and modest volatility, and neither cutting risk in 2018 and 2019 nor its 2022 weakness have tarnished that record.

John Hancock Investment Grade Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Silver
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★

Over the past year, the John Hancock fund rose 7.45%, while the average fund in its category rose 6.90%. The fund, launched in March 2015, has climbed 5.44% over the past three years and 0.50% over the past five.

Since 2023, the team has maintained its defensive stance, with minor adjustments to sector allocations, only selectively adding credit risk. As of March 2025, high-quality agency MBS occupied the portfolio’s largest allocation at 38%, followed by corporate debt at 29%.

While the team reduced its exposure to riskier debt and avoided high-yield bonds, the portfolio still carries plenty of credit risk with a hefty weighting to BBB rated debt; this stood at 25% of total assets in March 2025, 11 percentage points more than its intermediate core-bond Morningstar Category’s distinct peer median.

The strategy’s tilt toward lower-rated investment-grade securities has resulted in a riskier portfolio than its benchmark and typical category rival. That profile has stung in bouts of downturns but also helped outperform when risk is rewarded, such as in 2023 and 2024. Long-term performance has been strong, resulting mostly from this deliberate credit preference. Over a decade, the strategy’s volatility-adjusted return (as measured by the Sharpe ratio) was better than 60% of its peers.

JPMorgan Core Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Gold
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★

The $54.2 billion fund has gained 7.50% over the past year, while the average fund in its category is up 6.90%. The JPMorgan fund, launched in February 2005, has climbed 5.48% over the past three years and 0.96% over the past five.

The team’s structure and consistency shine through the portfolio. Managers build distinctive securitized allocations, typically 40%–50% of assets, by targeting structures that offer more stable cash flow and a reduced tendency to return capital when interest rates fall than traditional mortgage pass-throughs, a hallmark of their approach. Interest rate sensitivity, as measured by duration, normally stays within 10% of the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index’s while tactically positioning along the yield curve rather than making large rate bets.

Performance has been remarkably steady. Since Figuly’s first full month in October 2015, the US-domiciled fund’s R6 shares’ 2.31% annualized return through January 2025 outpaced both the benchmark and category median by 26 and 41 basis points, respectively. The strategy has repeatedly held up better than peers during credit stress and posted competitive results over three- and five-year trailing periods.

With experienced leadership, a robust research platform, and a time-tested process, JPMorgan Core Bond remains a compelling choice for an investor’s foundational fixed-income fund.

Neuberger Berman Core Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Bronze
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★

Over the past year, the Neuberger Berman fund rose 7.28%, while the average fund in its category rose 6.90%. The fund, launched in January 2019, has climbed 5.47% over the past three years and 0.59% over the past five.

This robust approach is built on collaboration. Well-resourced teams of sector-specialist analysts and managers work in tandem to forecast return distributions, a key component in the firm’s quantitative optimization model. The core-bond portfolio-management team has final say on sector allocations (though they lean heavily on the model’s proposed optimal weightings), and analysts drive bottom-up security-selection decisions.

The resulting asset mix tends to feature heavy stakes in agency mortgage-backed securities, investment-grade credit, and Treasuries. Indeed, these core holdings accounted for about 69% of December 2025 portfolio assets. It is the managers’ willingness to dabble in less frequently trodden areas of securitized debt, such as collateralized loan obligations and credit risk transfers, that differentiates this strategy from more conservative peers. So, too, does their willingness to lean into secular themes, such as the staying power of so-called hyperscalers—companies that achieve global scale through cloud computing and data center infrastructure.

The strategy’s diversified risk-taking and consistent yield carry advantage over its index and distinct intermediate core bond Morningstar Category peers has been a winning formula over time. The mutual fund’s institutional shares’ 2.28% annualized return over the trailing 10 years through December 2025 bested more than 60% of rivals.

Vanguard Core Bond Fund

• Morningstar Medalist Rating: Silver
• Morningstar Rating: ★★★★

Over the past year, the Vanguard fund rose 7.47%, while the average fund in its category rose 6.90%. The fund, launched in March 2016, has climbed 5.62% over the past three years and 0.69% over the past five.

Vanguard’s fixed-income platform has evolved materially over the last decade, and the depth and experience of resources now stand out from many peers. Co-lead managers Brian Quigley and Daniel Shaykevich have managed this strategy since 2016 (the fund’s inception) and 2018, respectively, and their firm experience dates back even further. The duo works with comanager Arvind Narayanan, who also holds a leadership role as head of the investment-grade corporate sector team.

This collaborative structure is key to the process. Senior fixed-income leaders define the macro framework for duration, yield-curve, and sector positioning, while Quigley and Shaykevich work with sector specialists to select securities among Treasuries, securitized assets, corporate bonds, and emerging-market debt. The team actively manages the portfolio’s duration, a measure of interest rate sensitivity, but keeps that measure within half a year of the Bloomberg US Aggregate Float Adjusted Index.

The fund has delivered strong long-term results. Since May 2018, Quigley and Shaykevich’s first full month managing the fund together, the Admiral shares’ 2.7% annualized gain through November 2025 beat roughly 90% of distinct intermediate core Morningstar Category peers. The strategy has underperformed over short periods. For instance, in 2022’s bond market volatility, the strategy fell behind half of its rivals, partly because of its relatively longer duration stance when yields climbed. But its value-driven approach and strong risk management efforts should deliver solid results for patient investors over the long term.