Bond Exchange Traded Funds, and Emerging Market Bonds

We finally have bond ETFs that can add value, diversification, and maybe a little oomph to your investment portfolio.

Expense ratios are very low for bond ETFs, often between 0.2% and 0.3% of assets per year. You can compare that to the average 1.2% for open-end municipal mutual funds or 1.3% for closed-ends mutual funds. As with equity ETFs, the bond funds are available trading throughout the day and they can also be used in short sales. They all track indexes. They do not trade at noticeable discounts or premiums to their net asset value, which is a big issue with actively managed closed-end funds.

Emerging market bond funds are a subset of this class. Read more at Forbes.