VANGUARD CORE BOND FUND
Actively managed U.S. bond fund
As of its 2026 Q2 report, VANGUARD CORE BOND FUND held 3,478 positions with $22.64B in net assets. Its ten largest holdings made up 8.1% of the fund. The VCOBX share class costs 0.1% a year. Over the 12 months to May 2026, VCOBX returned 5.5%, with dividends reinvested. In 2026 Q2 it added 581 new positions and exited 405.
Vanguard Core Bond Fund (the Fund) seeks to provide total return while generating a moderate level of current income.
The fund actively manages a diversified bond portfolio across maturities, credit qualities, and geographies, targeting a dollar-weighted average maturity between 4 and 12 years and holding at least 80% in bonds including corporates, government securities, and mortgage-backed securities. The fund may hold up to 10% in foreign-currency bonds and up to 5% in below-investment-grade bonds, and may use derivatives including futures, swaps, and short positions to implement its strategy. Because security selection drives returns, performance depends on the manager's choices among bonds of varying quality and maturity.
What you own
| Company | Weight | Value | Shares |
|---|---|---|---|
Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac 5.00% · due 2026-07-13 | 2.32% | $524.38M | — |
NVIDIA Corp 4.25% · due 2028-06-15 | 0.96% | $217.47M | — |
NVIDIA Corp 4.35% · due 2029-06-15 | 0.75% | $169.18M | — |
United States Treasury Note/Bond 3.88% · due 2030-06-30 | 0.62% | $140.58M | — |
Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau 4.13% · due 2031-07-22 | 0.62% | $139.49M | — |
OBX 2026-INV2 Trust 5.38% floating · due 2056-04-25 | 0.60% | $137.09M | — |
Fannie Mae REMICS 5.08% floating · due 2056-06-25 | 0.60% | $136.01M | — |
Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac 5.50% · due 2026-07-13 | 0.58% | $131.84M | — |
Finland Government International Bond 4.50% · due 2036-06-03 | 0.55% | $124.59M | — |
Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac 6.00% · due 2026-07-13 | 0.53% | $120.65M | — |
The 200 largest of 3,478 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 | 59.38% |
| Securitized | 37.40% |
| Cash & short-term | 0.07% |
| Loans | 0.02% |
| Derivatives | -0.03% |
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
- 42.5%
- Government
- 24.7%
- Other
- 7.2%
- International
- 6.9%
- 12 other sectors
- 18.7%
- Securitized
- 42.5%
- Government
- 24.7%
- Other
- 7.2%
- International
- 6.9%
- Financials
- 6.4%
- Information Technology
- 4.2%
- Utilities
- 1.9%
- Health Care
- 1.5%
- Industrials
- 1.5%
- Communication Services
- 0.9%
- Energy
- 0.8%
- Consumer Staples
- 0.5%
- Consumer Discretionary
- 0.4%
- Materials
- 0.4%
- Real Estate
- 0.2%
- Cash
- 0.1%
How it has done
VCOBX share class · total returns with dividends reinvested
Volatility over the last 12 months: 3.28%. Past returns are a record, not a forecast.
Jun 2026 has been filed since the trailing figures were struck, so it is 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 2 share classes hold the same portfolio
| Share class | Expense ratio | 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | Worst fall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.10% | +5.50% | +14.33% | +2.45% | -4.71% | |
| 0.20% | +5.35% | +14.00% | +1.97% | -4.75% |
These classes hold the same portfolio, so the 0.48pp spread over 5 years is the cost difference between them — roughly 0.10pp a year — not a difference in what they own.
Fees & fund details
VANGUARD CORE 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
- Investment grade
- Rate sensitivity
- Intermediate duration
- Expense ratio, by class
- 0.10% – 0.20%· VCOBX 0.10%
- Portfolio turnover
- 367.00% a year · as of 2026 Q1
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.
581 new· the largest 6
405 exited· the largest 3
Debt profile
What this fund holds — value-weighted across its bond and securitized long positions · as of 2026-06-30
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 | 79.1% |
| Floating rate | 20.9% |
Share of the fund's debt value in each maturity band, shortest first.
| <1y | 5.3% |
| 1-3y | 11.2% |
| 3-5y | 12.0% |
| 5-10y | 19.8% |
| 10y+ | 51.7% |
Based on what filers reported; a filer that never reported a flag also reads as none.
Risk profile
Interest-rate and credit-spread sensitivity, both in years · as of 2026Q2
Most of this fund’s sensitivity is to interest rates, with credit spreads carrying about half as much.
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.
| Interest rates | 60% |
| Credit spreads | 40% |
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 | +3.65 yr |
| High yield | +0.11 yr |
Share of duration at each point, shortest first. A positive figure loses value when spreads widen; a negative one offsets — a credit hedge.
| 1 yr | 0.67 yr | 12% |
| 5 yr | 1.66 yr | 29% |
| 10 yr | 2.12 yr | 37% |
| 30 yr | 1.25 yr | 22% |
3 mo is NEGATIVE (-0.06 yr) — a deliberate hedge at that point on the curve, so it is not part of the band above.
| 3 mo | 0.02 yr | 0% |
| 1 yr | 0.41 yr | 11% |
| 5 yr | 1.20 yr | 32% |
| 10 yr | 1.55 yr | 41% |
| 30 yr | 0.58 yr | 15% |
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 | -0.06 | +0.02 | +0.00 | $36.4k | $2.2k |
| 1 yr | +0.67 | +0.39 | +0.02 | $875.9k | $52.4k |
| 5 yr | +1.66 | +1.15 | +0.05 | $2.60m | $112.6k |
| 10 yr | +2.12 | +1.53 | +0.03 | $3.45m | $59.9k |
| 30 yr | +1.25 | +0.57 | +0.01 | $1.30m | $12.1k |
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 5.63 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.
Understand how this fund fits with the rest.
Explore shared holdings, compare funds and follow their businesses with your connected AI:
- “Where do my funds overlap — VCOBX, QQQ and the fund in my 401(k)?”
- “How do this fund’s ten biggest holdings stack up against each other?”
- “For my target-date fund, what’s the real stock-and-bond mix once you look through it?”