Short-Term Bonds

[okapi]

Vanguard has a short-term treasury fund and a short-term federal fund,which I think is also treasuries.Can anyone tell me what the difference is,and why you would invest in one fund over the other.Thanks.

 

[photoguy]

If you look at the fund information pages on vanguard you can examine their duration, holdings, etc. They are very similar and personally I would have no problems using them interchangeably if I wanted a short-term gov bond fund. The main difference appears that one has 15% gov mortgage backed securities and the other has 5%.