8 Top-Performing Intermediate Core-Plus Bond Funds

Intermediate core-plus bond funds offer the next step up in risk and yield from intermediate core bond funds. Investors who are willing to take on that extra risk to obtain potentially higher returns can look to the following eight funds, all of which have high-conviction

We looked for the funds with the best returns over the last one-, three-, and five-year periods. All names that passed the screen are

• Calvert Income Fund CINCX
• Dodge & Cox Income Fund DODIX
• Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF EVTR
• Guggenheim Total Return Bond Fund GIBRX
• JPMorgan Core Plus Bond Fund JCPUX
• PGIM Total Return Bond Fund PTRQX
• PIMCO Total Return Fund PTTRX
• Victory Pioneer Bond Fund PBFKX

These portfolios invest primarily in investment-grade US fixed-income issues including government, corporate, and securitized debt, but generally have greater flexibility than core offerings to hold non-core sectors such as corporate high yield, bank loan, emerging-markets debt, and non-US currency 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.

Over the past 12 months, the average fund in the intermediate core-plus bond category returned 5.61%. On an annualized basis, these funds have climbed 5.52% over the past three years and 0.81% over the past five. Meanwhile, the US Core Bond Index has risen 5.43% over the past 12 months, 4.98% per year over the past three years, and 0.34% per year over the past five.

Screening for the Top-Performing Intermediate Core-Plus Bond Funds

We looked at returns from the past one, three, and five years using data in 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. We excluded funds with assets under $100 million and analyst coverage that was not 100%. 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.

Calvert Income Fund

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

This $1.4 billion fund has climbed 6.99% over the past year, outperforming the average fund in its category, which rose 5.61%. The Eaton Vance fund, launched in February 1999, has climbed 7.06% over the past three years and 2.01% over the past five.

Run by a team drawing from Calvert, Eaton Vance, and Morgan Stanley, the fund applies a thoughtful approach to credit selection, sector rotation, and ESG integration. The fund’s team and process have been strengthened following the integration of Calvert’s fixed-income team, with first Eaton Vance and then Morgan Stanley’s global resources. This has brought greater research depth, especially in areas like high-yield and bank-loan analysis. Despite some senior-level personnel turnover at Morgan Stanley’s fixed-income division, Vishal Khanduja and Brian Ellis have provided consistent leadership. The independent Calvert ESG team continues to play a key role in ensuring that the fund’s ESG-focused strategy is effectively implemented.

Even if performance was challenging during periods of credit market distress, such as 2018’s fourth-quarter or the covid meltdown, the fund’s risk profile appears somewhat elevated relative to the median peer, though not to an alarming degree, making it a reasonable option for investors seeking moderate income with a modest tilt toward credit risk.

Dodge & Cox Income Fund

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

This $105.6 billion fund has climbed 6.56% over the past year, outperforming the average fund in its category, which rose 5.61%. The Dodge & Cox fund, launched in January 1989, has climbed 6.20% over the past three years and 1.71% over the past five.

The fund’s patient and at times contrarian approach to investing isn’t changing. Historically, its managers have often favored corporates, noting that the yield advantage these securities offer is an important contributor to total returns over time. But this approach remains anchored on valuations, which has led to large adjustments to its corporate credit stake over time.

For instance, the team was quick to ramp up corporate credit exposure during the first-quarter 2020 selloff and did the same amid 2022’s rocky first half. But it saw fewer opportunities for taking credit market risk recently and reduced the portfolio’s corporate bond allocation to 30% of assets as of June 2025, at the low end of its historical range. At the same time, it increased its Treasuries allocation to 15% of assets and securitized debt, primarily agency mortgage-backed securities, to 50%; these are typically used as dry powder, so their weighting in the portfolio is inversely correlated to corporate valuations. And while this portfolio had been historically lighter on interest rate risk than its benchmark, its managers have gradually increased duration in recent months (to 6.3 years versus 6.1 for the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index as of mid-2025), in keeping with the portfolio’s conservative tilt.

While the strategy’s current makeup is uncharacteristically defensive, the tilt toward corporates has often made it more sensitive than most peers to credit market swings, as did its longtime shorter duration stance. However, the team has demonstrated strong security-selection skills, and its knack for exploiting market corrections has served investors well: The I share class’ 3.1% 10-year annualized gain through August 2025 topped 89% of distinct peers.

Eaton Vance Total Return Bond ETF

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

This $4.9 billion fund has gained 6.24% over the past year, while the average fund in its category is up 5.61%. The Morgan Stanley fund, launched in November 1984, has climbed 6.41% over the past three years and 1.25% over the past five.

Eaton Vance converted the mutual fund to an exchange-traded fund in March 2024 from its open-end incarnation when it was known as Morgan Stanley Institutional Core Plus Fixed Income. The conversion proved commercially successful: The new vehicle more than doubled the assets of the old fund in less than a year, reaching USD 1.36 billion by the end of January 2025.

The same team that oversees other offerings under Morgan Stanley, Eaton Vance, or Calvert brands manages this active ETF. This diverse branding structure stems from Morgan Stanley’s acquisition of Eaton Vance, which had previously acquired Calvert. While this multibrand approach may evolve over time, the Calvert brand will likely maintain its distinctive environmental, social, and governance focus.

The fund operates within specific investment parameters: no more than 20% of assets in below-investment-grade securities, 20% in emerging-markets debt, 10% in non-US-dollar-denominated bonds, and a maximum of 35% in nonagency MBS. Beyond these constraints, the investment process follows a well-established approach for broad fixed-income market exposure that has proved successful across the team’s other managed vehicles. Their methodology combines a six- to 12-month macroeconomic outlook with relative-value analysis to determine sector allocations, while specialized sector teams handle individual security-selection decisions.

The fund’s relatively low 31-basis-point expense ratio enhances its appeal as an attractive vehicle for investors seeking broad, diversified fixed-income exposure and active management.

Guggenheim Total Return Bond Fund

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

Over the past year, the Guggenheim fund rose 6.14%, while the average fund in its category rose 5.61%. The fund, launched in October 2016, has climbed 6.00% over the past three years and 1.02% over the past five.

CIO Anne Walsh and CIO of Fixed Income Steven Brown have kept in place the model designed by Walsh’s predecessor Scott Minerd, who passed away in 2022. They manage Guggenheim Total Return Bond and related strategies along with Adam Bloch and Evan Serdensky. The team draws on a vast group of other managers and researchers, including more than 50 for corporate credit, in addition to sizable teams focused on macro, rates, and structured credit.

The team operates within a distinctive framework developed with behavioral finance in mind. It segments decision-making among groups focused on sector research, macro research, portfolio construction, and portfolio management, and boasts a deliberate, slowed-down process to avoid mistakes. The size, depth, and quality of the work done by the corporate credit team, which rolls up to the analysis of many securitized issues, is a critical complement to the efforts of its 20-strong structured credit group as well.

The approach of exploiting inefficiencies among out-of-benchmark bonds has historically meant a large, eclectic sleeve of securitized fare, including roughly 34% in a mix of non-government securitized assets such as collateralized loan obligations, asset-backed securities, and nonagency mortgages at the end of 2024. The process is very value driven, though; for example, the team trimmed CLOs to 8.7% from 12.3% at the end of 2022 as valuations tightened.

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.

JPMorgan Core Plus Bond Fund

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

Over the past year, the JPMorgan fund rose 6.42%, while the average fund in its category rose 5.61%. The fund, launched in February 2005, has climbed 5.98% over the past three years and 1.29% over the past five.

JPMorgan Core Plus Bond’s managers effectively leverage the firm’s well-resourced global fixed-income platform to drive consistently strong decisions. Increased conviction in their inputs supporting portfolio decisions earns a Process upgrade to High from Above Average.

The managers skillfully balance characteristics of an intermediate core-bond fund with measured risk-taking in off-benchmark stakes. Various securitized debt types feature prominently, comprising 35% to 50% of assets. Instead of plain-vanilla mortgage pass-throughs, the portfolio features mortgage-backed securities pools and collateralized mortgage obligations, which meet stringent standards that protect against prepayment risk and limit duration extension. High-yield credit represents the largest non-investment-grade allocation, and the team adjusts these stakes based on its risk outlook. For example, a cautious macro view and rich valuations led the managers to trim high-yield exposure while adding to investment-grade corporates. Duration (a measure of interest rate sensitivity) normally stays within 10% of that of its benchmark.

The strategy touts compelling long-term results. Since March 2014, the mutual fund’s R6 shares’ 2.6% annualized return through August 2025 beat the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index’s 1.9% and the intermediate core-plus Morningstar Category peer median’s 2.4%. The fund’s yield advantage and solid security selection fueled its trailing 12-month 4.1% return through August 2025, better than nearly three-quarters of rivals.

PGIM Total Return Bond Fund

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

Over the past year, the PGIM fund rose 5.95%, while the average fund in its category rose 5.61%. The fund, launched in December 2010, has climbed 6.24% over the past three years and 1.09% over the past five.

PGIM Total Return Bond’s robust process and deep resources make this a worthwhile offering for investors who can handle its higher-than-average volatility.

The managers focus on finding issues with good fundamentals that also generate a healthy amount of income. That gives the strategy a bias toward corporate bonds, securitized assets, and smaller helpings in non-US developed- and emerging-markets debt. They built an 18.6% stake in agency mortgage-backed securities by the end of 2024 from almost none in 2021 but have otherwise had historically scant exposure to Treasuries or agency-guaranteed securities. The team has used swaps and futures to manage interest-rate sensitivity, hewing close to the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index and the intermediate core-plus Morningstar Category median since 2021. It had otherwise been positioned with more rate sensitivity than both for several years before that, though, by as much as 1 additional year of duration (a measure of rate sensitivity). Between that and its nongovernment exposures, the strategy has generally been more volatile than most rivals but with commensurately strong long-term returns.

The strategy gave a taste of both during 2022 and 2023. Its Z shares lagged the Aggregate Index by just under 2 percentage points in 2022 when spiking interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unhinged markets. Among other things, the portfolio’s overweightings in corporates and collateralized loan obligations contributed to the underperformance, on top of the broad market’s double-digit losses. Fortunes flipped in 2023 as markets recovered, and the fund’s CLO, corporate, and nonagency mortgage exposures made strong contributions. It outperformed, if to a lesser degree, in 2024, from a diverse set of sources.

As those wins have outpaced its rougher stretches, the fund bested its bogy and a strong majority of distinct rivals over the more than 20 years since Tipp has comanaged the fund, as well as the trailing 10- and 15-year periods through February 2025. The strategy’s rigorous, fundamentals-based framework has contributed to that long-term success, and investors willing to ride out that kind of turbulence stand a good chance of being rewarded.

PIMCO Total Return Fund

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

The $47.9 billion fund has climbed 6.77% over the past year, outperforming the average fund in its category, which rose 5.61%. The PIMCO fund, launched in May 1987, has climbed 6.24% over the past three years and 1.02% over the past five.

Despite the November 2025 retirement of former credit CIO Mark Kiesel, the management roster here remains topnotch. Mohit Mittal took on the leading role in October 2022 after former lead Scott Mather took a leave of absence (Mather retired two months later). Dan Ivascyn, Pimco’s group CIO, and Qi Wang, CIO of portfolio implementation, were added to the fund concurrent with Mather’s leave, while Mike Cudzil joined them when Kiesel stepped down.

When Mittal took over in October 2022, the firm tasked him with improving performance after a stretch of mediocre returns. He aimed to do so by incorporating high-conviction ideas from across the firm to a greater degree than his predecessor, such as swap spread trades and a currency carry basket (the latter involves borrowing in a low-interest-rate currency and using those funds to buy high-interest-rate currencies); these ideas have long been used across the firm. These positions may increase the portfolio’s tracking error versus the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index—a measure of return deviation from the benchmark—compared with what it had been under Mather, but many are diversifying and all are rigorously sized and monitored. The goal has been to improve results without introducing an unwelcome level of volatility, and so far, Mittal and team have been successful.

While longer-term results are about average, Mittal’s leadership has benefited investors recently. Over the trailing three years through December 2025, the US fund’s institutional share class gained 6% annualized, beating 80% of distinct competitors in the intermediate core-plus bond Morningstar Category and 138 basis points better than the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index. Tracking error over that period was 95 basis points, only marginally higher than the category median of 83 basis points. Performance won’t always be top quintile, but the strategy continues to be among the best core-plus bond funds available to investors.

Victory Pioneer Bond Fund

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

The $5.3 billion fund has climbed 6.93% over the past year, outperforming the average fund in its category, which rose 5.61%. The Victory Capital fund, launched in December 2012, has climbed 6.31% over the past three years and 1.35% over the past five.

Victory Pioneer Bond’s seasoned leadership team has successfully navigated through market cycles by executing a disciplined, relative-value approach over the long haul.

Lead manager Ken Taubes has guided this portfolio since 1999, drawing support from experienced comanagers and Pioneer’s robust resources. The firm strengthened the manager bench over time, adding Brad Komenda, who brings more than 25 years of industry experience, and Tim Rowe, a securitized veteran, in 2018. In 2021, the firm named Jonathan Scott, director of multi-sector fixed income, and completed the current roster. Turnover within the analyst ranks poses a potential challenge, but the research teams remain large and experienced. The managers tap into a 14-person corporate credit team, a six-person securitized group, and a five-person insurance-linked securities team for portfolio construction guidance. While Victory Capital’s May 2025 purchase of Pioneer also warrants monitoring, the strategy continues to benefit from experienced and stable managers and deep supporting resources.

The team invests at least 80% of assets in investment-grade securities and adds exposure to high-yield corporates, bank loans, and insurance-linked securities when valuations are favorable. They typically keep duration within 1.5 years of the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index while seeking annualized excess returns of 1.0%–1.5%. As of June 2025, the portfolio’s below-investment-grade stake edged up to 9% from 8% a year earlier, but remained in line with the 8.6% peer median allocation.

The consistent approach has yielded strong long-term performance. Over the trailing 10-year period through September 2025, the Y shares’ 2.8% annualized return exceeded over 70% of its intermediate core-plus bond Morningstar Category competitors. On a risk-adjusted basis, performance also appeared compelling. The fund’s Sharpe ratio, which measures volatility-adjusted returns, outperformed more than 70% of its peers over the same timeframe. Overall, this strategy remains a strong choice for investors.