Franklin Core Plus Bond Fund
Actively managed U.S. bond fund
As of its 2026 Q2 report, Franklin Core Plus Bond Fund held 3,236 positions with $2.75B in net assets. Its ten largest holdings made up 31.6% of the fund. The FRSTX share class costs 0.72% a year. Over the 12 months to May 2026, FRSTX returned 5.5%, with dividends reinvested. In 2026 Q3 it added 235 new positions and exited 347.
To earn a high level of current income. A secondary goal is capital appreciation over the long term.
The fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in bonds across the full spectrum of fixed-income securities—government, corporate, mortgage-backed, and asset-backed—using active macroeconomic and fundamental analysis to shift among debt classes and geographies. The strategy is core plus, meaning it emphasizes investment-grade securities but allocates up to 30% to below-investment-grade debt rated at least Caa/CCC to enhance returns. Because security selection depends on the manager's credit analysis and macroeconomic views, performance will diverge from the fund's benchmark, the Bloomberg US Aggregate Index.
What you own
| Company | Weight | Value | Shares |
|---|---|---|---|
INFXXFranklin Institutional U.S. Government Money Market Fund | 8.69% | $238.62M | — |
United States of America 4.25% · due 2054-08-15 | 4.34% | $119.18M | — |
FNMA or FHLMC 2.50% · due 2056-05-25 | 3.38% | $92.85M | — |
GNMA 6.00% · due 2056-05-15 | 3.03% | $83.12M | — |
FNMA or FHLMC 5.50% · due 2056-05-25 | 2.91% | $80.00M | — |
FNMA 2.00% · due 2052-04-01 | 2.69% | $74.00M | — |
United States of America 1.88% · due 2027-02-28 | 1.73% | $47.46M | — |
FNMA or FHLMC 3.00% · due 2056-05-25 | 1.66% | $45.44M | — |
FNMA or FHLMC 4.50% · due 2056-05-25 | 1.63% | $44.73M | — |
United States of America 3.88% · due 2027-11-30 | 1.59% | $43.70M | — |
The 200 largest of 3,236 holdings, with the share counts as filed, open with a free account.
What the fund is made of
Percentages are of fund net assets. Rounding, liabilities and short positions can make totals differ from 100%.
| Bonds | 56.74% |
| Securitized | 52.59% |
| Cash & short-term | 8.70% |
| Loans | 2.91% |
| Stocks | 0.04% |
| Derivatives | -0.13% |
These positions come to 120.86% of the fund's net assets. This counts only what the fund reported holding — the holdings disclosure covers assets, not liabilities such as borrowings — so it is not expected to reconcile to 100%.
The outer band is exposure held short — written against the portfolio rather than part of it, which is why it sits outside the ring and why the two are never netted into one figure.
Derivatives are shown at market value, not notional exposure.
By sector
- Securitized
- 47.6%
- Other
- 15.1%
- Government
- 9.7%
- International
- 7.0%
- 12 other sectors
- 20.7%
- Securitized
- 47.6%
- Other
- 15.1%
- Government
- 9.7%
- International
- 7.0%
- Financials
- 5.3%
- Utilities
- 4.5%
- Information Technology
- 2.0%
- Industrials
- 1.7%
- Health Care
- 1.6%
- Communication Services
- 1.4%
- Cash
- 1.3%
- Consumer Discretionary
- 1.1%
- Consumer Staples
- 0.6%
- Energy
- 0.5%
- Real Estate
- 0.3%
- Materials
- 0.2%
How it has done
FRSTX share class · total returns with dividends reinvested
Volatility over the last 12 months: 3.13%. Past returns are a record, not a forecast.
Jun 2026 and Jul 2026 have been filed since the trailing figures were struck, so they are not in the table above or the curve — every figure here shares one cut-off, which is what makes them comparable with other funds.
The 5 share classes hold the same portfolio
| Share class | Expense ratio | 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | Worst fall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.72% | +5.50% | +16.96% | +9.09% | -2.65% | |
| 1.12% | +5.06% | +15.50% | +6.92% | -2.75% | |
| 0.47% | +5.76% | +17.82% | +10.45% | -2.59% | |
| 0.97% | +5.27% | +16.18% | +7.79% | -2.73% | |
| 0.37% | +5.99% | +18.19% | +11.21% | -2.68% |
These classes hold the same portfolio, so the 4.29pp spread over 5 years is the cost difference between them — roughly 0.86pp a year — not a difference in what they own.
Fees & fund details
Franklin Core Plus Bond Fund is an actively managed U.S. bond fund.
- Asset class
- Bonds
- Region
- United States
- Management
- Actively managed
- Fund type
- Open-end fund
- Credit quality
- Mixed credit
- Rate sensitivity
- Intermediate duration
- Expense ratio, by class
- 0.37% – 1.12%· FRSTX 0.72%
- Portfolio turnover
- 156.08% a year · as of 2025 Q3
Net is what a holder pays after the adviser's contractual waiver; gross is before it. A waiver can expire.
Turnover is how much of the portfolio was replaced in a year.
Classified from what the fund holds, not from its name · 2026 Q2. The summary is a paraphrase of the prospectus; the objective is verbatim.
What changed this quarter
Positions that entered or left the fund since its previous filing. Positions that were only resized are not listed.
235 new· the largest 4
347 exited· the largest 3
Debt profile
What this fund holds — value-weighted across its bond and securitized long positions · as of 2026-04-30
Share of the fund's debt by how its coupon behaves — the fact that decides whether a rate move reaches this portfolio at all.
| Fixed rate | 86.1% |
| Floating rate | 13.9% |
| Zero-coupon or unclassified | 0.1% |
Share of the fund's debt value in each maturity band, shortest first.
| <1y | 2.7% |
| 1-3y | 8.5% |
| 3-5y | 12.7% |
| 5-10y | 24.4% |
| 10y+ | 51.8% |
These three overlap — one holding can be in arrears and paying in kind at once — so they are shown separately and never summed.
Risk profile
Interest-rate and credit-spread sensitivity, both in years · as of 2026Q2
More of this fund’s sensitivity sits in credit spreads than in interest rates — a rate rally that comes with a credit selloff works against it.
Where the loss would come from. The two shocks are the same size, so this is the balance of the fund's two sensitivities rather than a bet on one moving more.
| Credit spreads | 52% |
| Interest rates | 48% |
Filers report the impact of a 0.01% move only, so the total is our own scaling of that one number and overstates the loss on most bonds — read it as approximate, never as precise. The two sensitivities overlap rather than add up: they measure the same positions against different shocks, which is why the durations above are shown side by side and never summed.
Share of the fund's spread duration carried by each credit tier.
| Investment grade | +4.01 yr |
| High yield | +1.14 yr |
Share of duration at each point, shortest first. A positive figure loses value when spreads widen; a negative one offsets — a credit hedge.
| 3 mo | 0.01 yr | 0% |
| 1 yr | 0.27 yr | 6% |
| 5 yr | 1.00 yr | 21% |
| 10 yr | 1.54 yr | 32% |
| 30 yr | 1.94 yr | 41% |
| 3 mo | 0.01 yr | 0% |
| 1 yr | 0.28 yr | 5% |
| 5 yr | 1.15 yr | 22% |
| 10 yr | 1.65 yr | 32% |
| 30 yr | 2.05 yr | 40% |
The two bands measure the same positions against different shocks and do not add — a Treasury carries rate duration and no spread duration, a floating-rate credit the reverse. Rate tenors are also summed across every currency the fund discloses.
Show the numbers
| Tenor | Rate yrs | IG yrs | HY yrs | IG $/bp | HY $/bp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 mo | +0.01 | +0.01 | +0.00 | $3.8k | $277 |
| 1 yr | +0.27 | +0.20 | +0.08 | $55.3k | $21.7k |
| 5 yr | +1.00 | +0.90 | +0.26 | $246.3k | $70.6k |
| 10 yr | +1.54 | +1.25 | +0.40 | $343.2k | $111.0k |
| 30 yr | +1.94 | +1.65 | +0.40 | $452.4k | $109.3k |
Dollar change per 1bp of spread movement, as filed and sign-anchored. A blank cell was not filed; a zero was.
Duration contribution in years, summing to the fund's 4.76 yr.
This is where the fund's rate exposure sits, not its currency risk — most international bond funds hedge the currency back to dollars, and the size of those hedges is not in the filing. Tenors are also summed across curves, so a 5-year JPY point and a 5-year USD point are added together.
A newer credit-spread reading (2026Q3) is on file. This page holds one quarter across every figure on it, so that one appears here next quarter.
Understand how this fund fits with the rest.
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