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You probably own a bond fund right now, and you assume it is protecting your money from inflation. A new Morningstar study just upended that assumption for millions of fixed-income investors who believed they were playing it safe.Some bond fund categories crushed inflation over the past decade, delivering cumulative real gains well above 25 percent. Others gradually destroyed purchasing power, leaving investors worse off than when they first put their money to work. The gap between the winners and losers came down to one overlooked factor that most investors can control today.If you hold bonds inside a 401(k), IRA, or brokerage account, these results directly affect your retirement timeline. The next few sections break down exactly which fund categories won, which lost, and what you should consider doing.High-yield bond funds delivered the strongest inflation-beating returnsMorningstar analyzed 10-year cumulative real returns for U.S. taxable-bond mutual funds and ETFs through December 2025. Every return was adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index to measure actual purchasing power gained or lost. Results were grouped into five performance buckets, from real losses exceeding 10 percent to real gains above 25 percent.Related: Legendary economist delivers blunt warning on inflation, tariffsHigh-yield bond funds dominated the scoreboard, with nearly 80 percent of funds landing in the strongest real-gain category. These funds hold lower-rated corporate debt that pays higher yields, and that extra credit exposure paid off across the full decade. For you as an investor, credit risk turned out to be the single biggest driver of inflation-beating returns during this period.Fidelity, Vanguard, and T. Rowe Price led the winners with standout real gainsThree household-name fund companies produced some of the decade’s most impressive real returns in the high-yield category. Fidelity Capital & Income (FAGIX) posted a 56 percent cumulative real return over 10 years, per Morningstar Direct data. Vanguard High-Yield Corporate (VWEHX) and T. Rowe Price High Yield (PRHYX) each cleared the 25 percent real-return threshold.More top-performing fund categories:Bank-loan funds also performed strongly, with Fidelity Floating Rate High Income (FFRHX) landing in the top real-gain tier.T. Rowe Price Floating Rate (PRFRX) joined FFRHX in delivering strong inflation-adjusted returns over the full 10-year period.Multisector bond funds rounded out the winning categories by combining credit exposure with flexible allocation across bond types.Every fund on this list shares a willingness to hold riskier corporate debt during a period of moderate economic expansion. Bank-loan funds benefited specifically from their floating-rate structures, which adjusted upward as the Fed hiked short-term rates. If your bond allocation sits entirely in government or investment-grade core funds, these results highlight missed opportunity.Mortgage-backed and core bond funds quietly eroded purchasing powerThe funds that most investors consider the safest turned out to be some of the worst performers after adjusting for inflation. Vanguard Total Bond Market Index (VBTLX), one of the most widely held bond funds in America, lost nearly 11 percent in real terms. Every $10,000 you invested a decade ago now buys roughly $8,900 worth of goods, not the $10,000 you started with originally.Related: Iran war causes mortgage rate surgeMortgage-backed securities fared even worse, with the sector repeatedly punished by rate volatility and negative convexity dynamics. Vanguard GNMA (VFIJX) lost nearly 15 percent of its purchasing power over the full 10-year window, per Morningstar Direct data.American Funds Mortgage (MFAEX) ended the decade down more than 11 percent in real terms despite its perceived safety profile.Duration exposure was the hidden drag on real returnsDuration measures how sensitive a bond fund is to changes in interest rates, and higher duration amplifies losses during hikes. The Fed’s aggressive tightening cycle in 2022 and 2023 punished funds with longer average maturities far more than shorter-term peers. If you held a fund with a duration above seven years, your principal losses during that hiking cycle were likely severe and lasting. Morningstar’s clear pattern shows that credit exposure rewarded investors while duration exposure worked consistently against them. Funds prioritizing income from corporate borrowers fared better than those relying on government-backed debt across the full period. The type of bond fund you own matters far more than simply having bonds as a generic category in your overall asset mix.Inflation-protected bond funds delivered on their promise, but returns stayed modestTreasury Inflation-Protected Securities funds largely delivered on their core promise of preserving your purchasing power over time. Roughly three-fourths of TIPS funds preserved purchasing power, with most clustering in the 0 to 10 percent real return range. Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities (VAIPX) finished the decade essentially flat in real terms, per the Morningstar analysis. TIPS adjust their principal value in line with the Consumer Price Index, providing a built-in hedge against rising consumer prices. More Personal Finance:Why selling a home to your child for a dollar can backfireElon Musk says ‘universal high income’ is comingFTC, 21 states sue Uber over ‘shady’ subscription billingThe trade-off is that TIPS funds carry meaningful interest-rate sensitivity, which can produce painful short-term losses during rate spikes. If your primary goal is capital preservation against inflation without taking on credit risk, TIPS accomplished that specific job.

Inflation-protected securities preserved value but offered little growth, highlighting the tradeoff between safety and meaningful returns.Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

TIPS protected purchasing power but no meaningful growth A flat real return means your money maintained its value but did not grow beyond the pace of consumer price increases overall. Investors who relied solely on TIPS missed the stronger real gains that were available in high-yield and bank-loan categories. TIPS work best as one component of a broader fixed-income allocation, not as your only inflation defense inside a diversified portfolio.Current inflation at 2.4 percent adds urgency to choosing the right bond fund mixThe Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index rose 2.4 percent year over year in February 2026, unchanged from January. Core inflation held at 2.5 percent, still above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target rate for overall price stability.Tariffs, Middle East energy disruptions, and sticky services inflation all pose risks that could push these readings even higher. Bank of America economists project core CPI could peak at 3.2 percent in the second quarter of 2026 before slowly easing. If that forecast proves correct, bond funds that fail to outpace inflation will continue silently destroying your purchasing power.You need to evaluate your bond holdings not just by stated yield or total return numbers on your quarterly account statement. The real question is what those returns deliver after inflation takes its share, and that difference can be hundreds of dollars. Morningstar’s 10-year data shows that roughly 30 percent of bond funds failed that basic purchasing-power test over the full decade.Five practical steps to position your bond portfolio for inflation-adjusted returnsThese 10-year results from Morningstar are not just historical trivia for academic researchers or institutional fund managers. They provide a clear framework for how you should evaluate your fixed-income holdings starting with your next portfolio review.Key portfolio considerations based on the Morningstar 10-year real-return data:Check your real return, not just the stated return on your statement. Compare your bond fund’s 10-year return against cumulative CPI growth over the same period to see your true purchasing power.Evaluate your credit exposure with an honest assessment of current holdings. If your bond allocation is 100 percent in government or core funds, you may be quietly losing purchasing power right now.Consider adding a high-yield or bank-loan fund as a satellite position. Even a 10 to 20 percent allocation to credit-sensitive bonds can meaningfully improve your portfolio’s inflation-adjusted results.Keep TIPS as part of your fixed-income allocation for direct inflation protection. TIPS serve as a direct inflation hedge and work best alongside credit-oriented funds rather than replacing them in your plan.Manage your duration exposure deliberately and with purpose going forward. Shorter-duration funds suffered less during rate hikes, and with the Fed’s path still uncertain, controlling duration risk remains vital.These decisions are not about chasing last decade’s top performers or making dramatic overnight changes to a working strategy. The goal is simply to confirm that your bond allocation is actually doing what you believe it is doing after inflation is factored.The next decade of bond returns depends on your fund allocation choicesMorningstar’s data makes one thing uncomfortably clear for every fixed-income investor who is reading this piece right now. A bond fund labeled as safe does not automatically protect your purchasing power, and the past 10 years proved that convincingly. The 30 percent of funds that failed to keep up with inflation were not obscure or poorly managed niche products you overlooked.Charles Schwab’s 2026 fixed-income outlook recommends keeping average duration in the intermediate range of 5 to 10 years. Schwab also highlights TIPS and municipal bonds as areas of opportunity, which aligns directly with the Morningstar real-return data. Vanguard has stated that high-quality bonds offer compelling real returns given higher neutral interest rates in today’s environment.Your specific mix of credit quality, duration, and inflation sensitivity determines whether bonds build wealth or quietly erode it. Review your holdings against the Morningstar real-return framework and make thoughtful adjustments before the next cycle starts. Bond fund selection requires more deliberate thought than simply picking the largest or cheapest option on your platform’s fund menu.Related: Schwab says these 9 money mistakes could wreck you

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Broadcast Retirement Network’s Jeffrey Snyder discusses how to protect yourself and loved ones from cyber fraud and scams with the Identity Theft Resource Center’s Eva Velasquez.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkJoining me now, Eva Valesquez, is with the Identity Theft Resource Center. Eva, so great to see you. Thanks again for joining us this morning.Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterOh, I’m so glad to be back.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYou know, it was only yesterday, Eva, well, maybe about a month ago, when you were on talking about the big grandiose report you have that your organization puts out about all the scams and threats. We were, you know, I think we had a good conversation about that. We warned a lot of people, but there have been some recent geopolitical events that I think put in motion even more scams, even more cyber threats.I wanna get your reaction to what’s going on and how you look at it through the cybersecurity lens.Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterLook, anytime you have a big global event, that’s going to create more opportunities and vulnerabilities in our systems. So it absolutely stands to reason that given what’s happening right now, they are going, the bad actors are going to be looking both for ways to weaken our defense and for ways to exploit any vulnerabilities that already exist because we’re paying attention to other things, right? We are, I don’t wanna say distracted, but our focus is on other things.So that absolutely is going to happen. And it kind of doesn’t matter what the big global event is, we see this with huge weather events and disasters. We see this with if there is something going on in other countries with their political organizations and even with their economies.So it’s not unusual, unfortunately, for the bad guys to come out of the woodwork even more. And we were already at a heightened state of scams increasing, cybersecurity events increasing. It’s not a surprise.It’s an unfortunate reality, but it’s not a surprise.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkSo let’s talk about, we had a good conversation about scams. They’re gonna be enhanced. Are there more vulnerable parts of our population that really should keep their ears up, their eyes open and really boots to the ground when it comes to scams?Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterYes, there are. And those are the people that want to be engaged and they want to do something. They don’t like seeing harm.They support our troops. They may want to just really help people. This is one of the most despicable in my mind, types of scams where the bad guys prey either on people’s hope or on their good nature, on their humanity.So I am sure we aren’t seeing it in our contact center yet. I think we’re a couple of weeks out before we start getting the calls, but we are definitely going to see a lot more around that area. Charity scams, scans where they’re asking you to help an individual.Maybe it’s someone who’s in one of these places, a stranded traveler, a government worker, a foreign aid worker. And they’re going to play on your desire to do something good to help someone who’s in peril and ask for money, ask for your information. I’m sure we’re gonna continue to see imposter scams.And believe me, imposter scams, the most common type of scam, they’re through the roof, they hold steady at number one, and they will use, the bad guys, will use some form, they will impersonate, whether it’s a charity, just a fake charity, whether it’s an individual who, again, may be stranded or needs help. Those are definitely going to proliferate. So I really want people to be on their guard.If you want to do something to help, if you want to do something good, please, you pick the charity. Don’t let them pick you.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkYeah, or don’t let the bad actors pick you, of course. Let’s talk about the vehicle by which these scams are gonna happen. I suspect the phone is the predominant way that people are gonna reach out to dupe, I’ll call it duping people.It’s gonna be voice, you said imposter scams. I presume it’s gonna be text message, and there’s gonna be phishing or email. Did I miss anything?Are there any other?Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterSocial media, it’s absolutely going to proliferate on social media. And I think the jury’s out in my mind of which channel is going to be the one where we see the most traffic, because the bad guys don’t discriminate. They don’t, they’re gonna do whatever works.And we as human beings, we’re all different. Some people, regardless of your age, you may be very active on social media, but you really don’t answer the phone very often. Or vice versa, maybe you’re not really online, but when that call comes in, you answer the phone.They are not going to pick and choose and say, well, I’m only going to try to commit my crimes through one channel. And it may be different bad actors that are using different channels, but I think they’re all going to be deluged. So I think we’re gonna see increases in calls, text messages, emails, social media, not only direct messages, but simply fake pages, fake profiles being set up.A lot of times they’ll use GoFundMe accounts. And while the GoFundMe platform is a legitimate platform, the bad actors will insert themselves and they will own that account, but they’ll say that it’s for something else.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkAnd they probably, Ava, will use, as you were talking about social media, I was thinking about artificial intelligence and some videos to really pull at your heartstrings, right? I mean, it’s not too difficult for artificial intelligence to create a video or reference images.Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterOh, it takes very little effort. It takes very little skill and it costs very little money to create these fictions, these fictions out of thin air that look very, very real, whether it’s a flyer or a photo or a collage of photos and videos. I hate to say it, but you really can’t trust those things when they’re incoming.If you decide that this is something that you want to support, I always tell people get off the channel, that you were solicited on and go directly to a charity’s website, a legitimate charity. And we’ve made it so easy now to figure out who’s real and who’s fake. There are organizations like the Better Business Bureau, like Candid.Oh gosh, there’s a number of other ones and now they’re not coming to mind.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkWell, that’s okay. It’s not a quiz, but knowing that BBB and others are out there, basically do your research.Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterI mean, if you just Google third party accreditation for charities, you will get a list of legitimate third parties that do a deep dive and look into charities, how long they’ve been around, who their leadership is, what their finances are. I mean, I know this because the ITRC is a charity and we go through these processes to demonstrate to the public that we’re legitimate, we’re good stewards of those donations and those funds. So there are definitely ways that you can find out is this legitimate or not?It doesn’t take that long, but what the bad guys are banking on is that you are gonna be so moved and your heartstrings are going to be so pulled that you won’t take the five minutes. You’re just gonna go, yes, I want to do something and you’ll do it right away. It doesn’t make you a bad person.It doesn’t make you unsympathetic to what’s going on if you take that five minutes to check. In fact, that’s so much better because it ensures that the money you’re donating, the money you’re trying to use to help is actually going to get to those people that need the help and not in the pockets of a bad guy.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement NetworkSo in the remaining minute or so that we have, Eva, if I see one of these scams, I pick it out, I sniff it out, who do I contact? And tell us a little bit about the call center. Can I call, I know I can’t call Eva Velazquez, but can I call the, maybe I can, I don’t know.But do I call your call center and how can they help?Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterYes, yes. We are not a reporting organization. I would encourage people to report.If you didn’t engage with the scammer, but you’ve seen it, please report it to the FTC, report it to IC3, which is the Internet Crimes Complaint Center. And they will log that and they look for patterns and do investigations. If you actually did engage and you need help, maybe you did share some of your information.Maybe you’re just being deluged now by all of these offers and you need to make sure that your data is secure, that your identity is secure, and that you can figure out how to see if one of these offers is legitimate. By all means, call our toll-free number. Everything we do is free to the public.All of the advice, recovery plans, all of our educational resources, all at no cost to the public. And you can talk to a real person. It’s not a chat bot.It’s not an AI agent. These are real trained advisors that you can talk to and get the information that you need. And it’s 888-455-30.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network888-455-30. Ava, it’s always great to talk to you. I feel better already.I know the audience does as well. Thanks so much for joining us. And look, we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.Eva Velasquez, Identity Theft Resource CenterIt was great to be here, and I hope we can help some folks.

Your day-ahead look for March 24, 2026