For investors who thought active investing was dead, think again, at least when it comes to bonds: Active bond ETFs are taking market share from passive fixed-income strategies. Several well-respected bond shops, including Fidelity, Vanguard, JPMorgan, and iShares, have debuted active fixed-income exchange-traded funds during the past few years.The urge to go active with bond ETFs is a good one. “Active management in the bond market still makes sense,” argues Morningstar senior principal Eric Jacobson, who has been analyzing bond markets and bond funds for three decades. Concentrated ownership and infrequent trading can give active managers an advantage, he observes—and the bond market’s complexity and real-world distortions can create opportunities for active managers to exploit, too. “Fairly priced active bond funds from best-in-class asset managers are an option most investors should consider,” he concludes.Investors who’d like to establish a foothold in bonds or expand their current fixed-income allocation through a managed product can choose from several top active bond ETFs.The 12 Best Active Bond ETFs to Buy in 2026To find the best active bond ETFs to buy, we screened for those earning a Morningstar Medalist Rating of Gold with 100% analyst coverage. (Morningstar expects gold-rated funds to outperform their peers over a full market cycle.) We focused our list on ETFs that fall into Morningstar’s taxable bond US category group and have at least $100 million in assets. All data is as of April 17.Fidelity Investment Grade Bond ETF FIGBFidelity Total Bond ETF FBNDHartford Strategic Income ETF HFSIJPMorgan Core Plus Bond ETF JCPBJPMorgan Income ETF JPIEJPMorgan Limited Duration Bond ETF JPLDNeuberger Emerging Markets Debt Hard Currency ETF NEMDPGIM Short Duration Multi-Sector Bond ETF PSDMPimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active Exchange-Traded Fund MINTPimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active ESG Exchange-Traded Fund EMNTT. Rowe Price Floating Rate ETF TFLRiShares Total Return Active ETF BRTRThe list of the best active bond ETFs for 2026 covers a hodgepodge of investment styles. It includes active bond ETFs focusing on fixed-income securities with different maturities and credit qualities. Morningstar portfolio strategist Amy Arnott suggests in her Role in Portfolio framework that investors stick with short- and intermediate-term bond ETFs as core holdings in their portfolios. Bond ETFs that focus exclusively on certain other types of securities—such as corporate bonds, international bonds, long-term bonds, high-yield bonds, and so on—should play more limited roles in a portfolio.All of the active ETFs on our list invest in taxable bonds, but they practice very different strategies and therefore behave differently from each other. Investors need to do some homework to understand exactly what a particular ETF invests in before buying.Here’s a quick look at each of the best active bond ETFs. Be sure to review a fund’s complete report for more details.Fidelity Investment Grade Bond ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Intermediate Core BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.36%12 Month Yield: 4.13%Thoughtful succession planning helps to keep Fidelity Investment Grade Bond among the best core bond offerings.Fidelity’s core and core-plus-bond management team is still best-in-class as it continues to evolve. Its most recent evolution materialized in 2024’s fourth quarter when stalwart manager Jeffrey Moore retired, a departure well-telegraphed earlier in the year. Manager Michael Plage officially replaced Moore as this strategy’s lead, a logical move since Plage had been deeply involved in its day-to-day management alongside Moore since 2016. Fidelity added former securitized trader Brian Day to the core/core-plus management team as part of the firm’s longer-term plan to increase the manager cohort to five from four. Day and fellow rookie manager Stacie Ware—who also joined the strategy’s management roster in 2024—are part of the next generation of core/core-plus generalists for Fidelity. This management team also benefits from the strength of the firm’s broader fixed-income efforts: a deep analyst bench, sector-specific experts, and a cadre of dedicated quantitative risk specialists and traders.Collaboration is central to the strategy’s process. The team adjusts sector allocations and yield-curve positioning when they identify pockets of value in various sectors. In addition to its core opportunity set of Treasuries, investment-grade corporate credit, and agency mortgages, the strategy may hold up to 10% in below-investment-grade debt, though exposure here has been 5% or less in recent years. Still, a persistent BBB corporate credit overweighting can provide volatility at times. Strict guardrails around duration, a measure of interest rate risk, help to limit that volatility when there are big moves in interest rates; the team often keeps the portfolio’s duration within one-third of a year of its Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index’s.Thanks to nimble sector calls over the trailing decade through April 2025, the strategy’s 2.1% annualized return outpaced its index and placed in the top decile of distinct intermediate core bond Morningstar Category peers with a similarly strong volatility-adjusted return, as measured by the Sharpe ratio.Max Curtin, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the Fidelity Investment Grade Bond ETF.Fidelity Total Bond ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Intermediate Core-Plus BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.36%12 Month Yield: 4.73%Deep experience and thoughtful succession planning help Fidelity Total Bond stand out as a top-flight core-plus bond strategy.Fidelity’s core and core-plus-bond management team is still best-in-class as it continues to evolve. Co-lead portfolio managers Ford O’Neil and Celso Munoz remain in place, but the group around them has shifted a bit. Stalwart manager Jeffrey Moore retired in 2024’s fourth quarter, a departure well-telegraphed earlier in the year. Moore wasn’t as involved in the day-to-day management of this strategy as he was at Fidelity Investment Grade Bond (which he led), but he played an integral role as part of Fidelity’s highly collaborative core/core-plus portfolio management group. It’s a team that now totals five (up from four) after welcoming two rookie managers in 2024; former dedicated core/core-plus quant analyst Stacie Ware was named to the team in March 2024, while Brian Day joined by way of Fidelity’s securitized trading desk in October 2024. Ware and Day represent the next generation of core/core-plus generalists at Fidelity and are expected to be instrumental to the strategy’s future successes. The management team also benefits from the strength of the firm’s broader fixed-income efforts: a deep analyst bench, sector-specific experts, and a cadre of dedicated quantitative risk specialists and traders.This strategy takes a flexible approach, but the team has managed it well. In addition to its core opportunity set of Treasuries, investment-grade corporate credit, and agency mortgages—which make up nearly all of the strategy’s Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index benchmark—the team can allocate up to 20% in non-investment-grade bonds (including high-yield corporates and emerging-markets debt), when they find market valuations compelling. Relative to more conservatively positioned peers in the intermediate core-plus bond Morningstar Category, this provides the strategy with an edge in risk-on markets, but the flexibility can invite more volatility. Strict guardrails around duration, a measure of interest-rate risk, help to limit that volatility when there are big moves in interest rates; the team often keeps duration within 0.33 year of the Aggregate Index’s.O’Neil and the team have masterfully navigated many difficult market environments. Over the trailing decade through April 2025, the mutual fund’s Z shares’ 2.5% annualized return outpaced its index and landed in the top quintile of distinct category rivals with a similarly strong volatility-adjusted return, as measured by the Sharpe ratio.Max Curtin, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the Fidelity Total Bond ETF.Hartford Strategic Income ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Multisector BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.49%12 Month Yield: 5.67%Hartford Strategic Income’s skilled managers, strong analytic tools, and robust risk management underpin a disciplined process, making this one of the top multisector bond options.Subadvisor Wellington Management’s team and resources rival the industry’s best. Since 2012, lead manager Campe Goodman and comanager Joe Marvan have successfully steered this strategy, while Robert Burn, who joined the management roster in 2016, leverages his quantitative expertise. Each brings decades of industry experience to the table, and the firm named them partners in recognition of the value they bring to investors. Macro analysis guides sector allocation, duration, and yield-curve decisions, while sector specialists, who are also seasoned managers, tackle individual security selection within the various sleeves of the portfolio. The managers also tap into the firm’s sizable analyst team, comprehensive fixed-income risk systems, and quantitative research team for added input on portfolio construction. In total, these industry-leading resources have resulted in positive outcomes for the strategy.That matters because of the strategy’s focus on the riskier fixed-income sectors. Like many multisector bond peers, the managers primarily invest in more volatile sectors, such as emerging-markets debt (external and local-currency-denominated), bank loans, high-yield corporates, and nonagency mortgage-backed securities; they allocate less to higher-quality sectors like agency MBS and investment-grade corporates. The team also uses the flexibility of credit and interest rate derivatives to take long and short positions in various markets and to manage the portfolio’s duration (sensitivity to interest rates). While these tools introduce more risk, the managers have a history of using them thoughtfully.Since taking over in April 2012 through April 2025, this team has rewarded long-term investors who handled the strategy’s relatively higher volatility over the years. The mutual fund’s institutional shares gained 4.0% annualized and beat two-thirds of distinct peers, thanks to the team’s strong security selection and its ability to manage elevated exposures to riskier areas of the market. Performance adjusted for volatility, as measured by its information ratio, also outpaced two-thirds of its rivals.Tom Murphy, associate directorRead Morningstar’s full report on the Hartford Strategic Income ETF.JPMorgan Core Plus Bond ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Intermediate Core-Plus BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.38%12 Month Yield: 4.95%JPMorgan Core Plus Bond’s managers effectively leverage the firm’s well-resourced global fixed-income platform to drive consistently strong decisions. Increased conviction in their inputs supporting portfolio decisions earns a Process upgrade to High from Above Average.This review covers three vehicles, including a mutual fund (the oldest version to which this report applies), JPMorgan Core Plus ETF JCPB, and a collective investment trust.A robust, proven investment process expertly combines top-down views with meticulous security selection, driving the strategy’s Process upgrade. The approach focuses on fundamental, quantitative, and technical factors and starts with JPMorgan’s quarterly investment meeting, which establishes strategic macro themes, while weekly sector meetings concentrate on relative value and tactical positioning. Through robust debate, the lead managers effectively synthesize these insights to guide overall risk, duration, curve positioning, and sector allocation. They collaborate closely with sector-focused comanagers who execute bottom-up security selection.The managers skillfully balance characteristics of an intermediate core-bond fund with measured risk-taking in off-benchmark stakes. Various securitized debt types feature prominently, comprising 35% to 50% of assets. Instead of plain-vanilla mortgage pass-throughs, the portfolio features mortgage-backed securities pools and collateralized mortgage obligations, which meet stringent standards that protect against prepayment risk and limit duration extension. High-yield credit represents the largest non-investment-grade allocation, and the team adjusts these stakes based on its risk outlook. For example, a cautious macro view and rich valuations led the managers to trim high-yield exposure while adding to investment-grade corporates. Duration (a measure of interest rate sensitivity) normally stays within 10% of that of its benchmark.JPMorgan’s US Fixed-Income Chief Investment Officer Key Herr leads this effort alongside multisector fixed-income veteran Andrew Norelli and relative newcomer Priya Misra. This lead trio is surrounded by proven investment talent, which includes four other comanagers with extensive experience across its vast investment platform. Rick Figuly manages the portfolio’s securitized sleeve, while Lisa Coleman and Tom Hauser oversee the investment-grade and high-yield credit sleeves, respectively. In April 2025, Coleman announced her retirement effective early 2026; in response, JPMorgan added Vikas Pathani, a high-grade corporate-bond manager who joined the firm in 2004, to the fund. The firm’s well-resourced global fixed-income platform and its network of specialists help guide macro positioning and contribute to bottom-up ideas.The strategy touts compelling long-term results. Since Norelli’s March 2014 start (as the longest-tenured nonsleeve manager), the mutual fund’s R6 shares’ 2.6% annualized return through August 2025 beat the Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index’s 1.9% and the intermediate core-plus Morningstar Category peer median’s 2.4%. The fund’s yield advantage and solid security selection fueled its trailing 12-month 4.1% return through August 2025, better than nearly three-quarters of rivals.Paul Olmsted, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the JPMorgan Core Plus Bond ETF.JPMorgan Income ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Multisector BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.39%12 Month Yield: 5.65%JPMorgan Income showcases the firm’s extensive multisector capabilities.The strategy spans multiple vehicles, including the US mutual fund, JPMorgan Income ETF, and non-US-domiciled JPM Income SICAV. Coverage also spans two Australian vehicles, which employ the same team and process and are hedged to the Australian dollar.Multisector expert Andrew Norelli has led the strategy since the open-end mutual fund’s mid-2014 inception, but he can also draw on two skilled comanagers. Drew Headley leads securitized credit, and Tom Hauser focuses on high-yield bonds. Together, they leverage JPMorgan’s Global Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities platform, one of the most robust research and trading networks in the industry. This group includes sector specialists, analysts, traders, and risk managers, all supporting the strategy’s flexible mandate. The team’s generalist perspective enables effective relative-value decisions, while their specialty knowledge provides a distinct edge.A disciplined, value-driven philosophy anchors the process. The managers incorporate the firm’s macro outlook to guide top-down positioning and collaborate with analysts to inform sector and security selection. Their focus remains on investments that deliver high, consistent income and attractive risk premia. The benchmark-agnostic mandate allows wide discretion to implement best ideas, while risk controls aim to keep volatility within a 4%-6% standard deviation range.Securitized debt and high-yield corporates form the portfolio’s core income drivers. Strong relative valuations and risk-adjusted return prospects have led to increased securitized exposure, which reached nearly 74% of assets in September 2025, up from about 70% a year earlier. The team diversifies these holdings across agency mortgage-backed securities, nonagency MBS, commercial MBS, and asset-backed securities. Meanwhile, a favorable but cautious economic outlook has led the team to focus on fundamentally solid areas of the market, mostly from structured debt. It has also cut credit risk, with high-yield exposure falling to a historical low of 12.5%, roughly 16 percentage points less than three years ago. The fund’s consistent payout is attractive for investors who favor stable income over time.Performance has been strong over the long term. Since Norelli’s first full month in July 2014, the open-end fund’s R6 shares delivered a 4.0% annualized return through January 2026, outpacing the unique multisector bond category average 3.5% and ranking ahead of three-fourths of peers. A consistent yield advantage versus competitors has supported these results, though the strategy’s flexible positioning and emphasis on securitized debt can lead to short-term variability when riskier assets lag.Paul Olmsted, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the JPMorgan Income ETF.JPMorgan Limited Duration Bond ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Short-Term BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.24%12 Month Yield: 4.22%Longtime lead manager Michael Sais plans to retire in April 2026 but remains on the strategy until then. That, plus J.P. Morgan’s depth of talent and a thoughtful transition plan here, keeps this exchange-traded fund’s appeal intact.Sais, the lead manager on the strategy since 1995, announced his April 2026 retirement a year in advance, providing time to facilitate a smooth transition to Cary Fitzgerald and securitized specialist Sajjad Hussain. The firm named Fitzgerald as a comanager on the ETF on April 1, 2025, and had added Hussain as a comanager in November 2024. The decision to cede the reins to this duo makes sense given the portfolio’s securitized debt focus. Fitzgerald comes with solid credentials as J.P. Morgan’s head of short duration; he joined the firm in 2000. Hussain has limited management experience, yet his understanding of securitized markets runs deep, as the former head of the firm’s securitized research team. This pair should be able to get up to speed with the help of Sais and comanager Bob Manning, who’s been on the strategy since 2013 and has more than 25 years of industry experience.Disciplined security selection and stable interest rate sensitivity are the ETF’s key features, which result in lower volatility than most peers. The strategy avoids Treasuries, which make up 70% of the Bloomberg 1-3 Year US Government/Credit Index. Instead, the portfolio favors various types of securitized debt designed to offer an attractive yield and a stable duration profile, limiting extension in rising rate periods. Macro themes guide broad positioning, while diligent bottom-up security selection drives portfolio construction. Nonagency mortgage-backed securities, commercial mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, and collateralized loan obligations (40%-80% of assets) and agency MBS and collateralized mortgage obligations (25%-50%) constitute the bulk of the portfolio, while investment-grade credit plays a supporting role (0%-15%). Duration, a measure of the portfolio’s level of interest rate risk, has stayed between 1.2 and 2.0 years regardless of the index’s duration, and is frequently shorter than the average peer’s 2.2 years.This mix has produced a higher-yielding, higher-quality portfolio versus peers that more prominently feature corporate bonds—38.5% of assets on average versus the ETF’s 7.2% as of June 2025. Moreover, the portfolio’s 72.2% in AAA rated debt was higher than the average peer’s 26.0%.The strategy has delivered compelling long-term results. Over the trailing 15 years, the ETF’s 2.7% annualized return through August 2025 beat its unique short-term bond Morningstar Category’s median 2.3% and the index’s 1.6%. This top-quartile result was even better when adjusting for risk; its Sharpe ratio was second best among 90 category rivals with track records as long. While the ETF has held up in periods when credit spreads widened, its shorter duration may cause it to lag when long-term yields fall.Paul Olmsted, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the JPMorgan Limited Duration Bond ETF.Neuberger Emerging Markets Debt Hard Currency ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Emerging Markets BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.60%12 Month Yield: 6.00%A consistently executed process tailored to this team’s strengths justifies a Process Pillar rating of High.The investment process employed by this strategy has remained consistent since the team began working together in 2000. The strategy aims to outperform its benchmark, the JPMorgan EMBI Diversified Index, by approximately 1%-2% annually, with bottom-up country selection forming the backbone of the approach. Unlike many peers in its Morningstar Category, the managers do not buy local-currency emerging-markets bonds or take active duration bets in the portfolio. However, they do invest in emerging-markets corporate bonds (up to 15% of the assets), debt issued in euros (which the team hedges back into US dollars), and select countries excluded from the benchmark, such as South Korea and Slovenia.A hallmark of this strategy is its high-conviction investment approach. The managers don’t shy away from building sizable stakes in less commonly traded names, such as the team’s long-standing and often-substantial overweight position in the debt of Ivory Coast (3.7% as of March 2025, compared with the benchmark’s 0.6%). They also adopt a patient approach, evidenced by the portfolio’s low turnover, and are willing to tolerate periods of underperformance to see long-term bets pay off.Overall, the investment process distinguishes itself through the team’s expertise in country selection, with the strategy’s high-yielding investments in lesser-traded, frontier countries contributing positively to performance over the years.Note: The Process Pillar rating and analysis are indirectly assigned by an analyst. When an analyst covers a vehicle that follows a given strategy (as codified by Morningstar’s StrategyID data point) Morningstar maps the covered vehicle’s Process Pillar to any other uncovered vehicles that follow the same strategy (that is, share the same StrategyID). This ensures that the analyst’s view is leveraged whenever available and promotes consistency when assigning Process Pillar ratings to vehicles that follow the same strategy.Arvind Subramanian, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the Neuberger Emerging Markets Debt Hard Currency ETF.PGIM Short Duration Multi-Sector Bond ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Short-Term BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.40%12 Month Yield: 5.22%PGIM Short Duration Multi-Sector Bond takes a flexible approach that relies on strong fundamental research and a robust risk-management infrastructure. Offered through a long-standing mutual fund and a newer exchange-traded fund, the strategy remains an attractive option for short-term bond investors willing to tolerate episodic volatility in exchange for higher income.The firm’s multisector portfolio management team shepherds the strategy. That includes, but is not limited to, a trio of industry veterans in Gregory Peters, Richard Piccirillo, and Robert Tipp. Each named to the mutual fund since its first full year in 2014, the managers offer distinct areas of expertise spanning credit, securitized debt, and global rates. Together, with supporting multisector portfolio-construction experts, they set risk targets for multisector portfolios like this one within the confines of the strategy’s 250-basis-point tracking error budget relative to its Bloomberg US Government/Credit 1-3 Year Index. Among those involved in day-to-day portfolio construction are comanagers Matthew Angelucci and Tyler Thorn, both of whom were named to the fund in September 2023 amid the departures of two experienced managers. Meanwhile, the multisector team draws on standout sector-specialist teams across the firm’s fixed-income platform for bottom-up security ideas that fit their desired risk allocations.The group also manages PGIM Total Return; the main difference between the two strategies is their respective benchmarks. Whereas this one uses a 1–3-year bogy, PGIM Total Return employs the longer-duration Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index.The team’s tight handle on risk management inspires confidence. That’s important not only due to the strategy’s relatively risky and complex opportunity set but also given the group’s penchant for derivatives as critical risk-management tools. Through heavy use of futures and swaps, multisector managers regularly hedge out interest rate risk from longer-dated debt to maintain a short-duration profile, an approach that could spell trouble if not conducted with the necessary precision.This strategy stands out among its short-term bond Morningstar Category peers in large part due to its expanded opportunity set. It will often embrace credit risk compared with its more circumspect peers (the November 2025 portfolio’s 16% stake in below-investment grade and nonrated debt dwarfed its median peer’s 3%) while also maintaining a healthy portion of high-quality securitized debt.That combination has proven to be a winning one across market cycles. The mutual fund’s Z shares’ Sharpe ratio, a measure of volatility-adjusted returns, ranked in the top quartile of distinct peers over the trailing three-, five-, and 10-year periods through December 2025.Max Curtin, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the PGIM Short Duration Multi-Sector Bond ETF.Pimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active Exchange-Traded FundMorningstar Category: US Fund Ultrashort BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.36%12 Month Yield: 4.48%Veteran leadership, specialized short-term expertise, effective collaboration, and a time-tested process make Pimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active ETF a best-in-class selection among ultrashort bond peers. This strategy, which is more constrained than its sibling Pimco Short-Term, also includes a UCITS version.Lead manager Jerome Schneider heads an impressive team of dedicated ultrashort and liquidity markets specialists. Schneider is well known as the face of the firm’s short-term strategies and skillfully collaborates with comanagers Andrew Wittkop and Nate Chiaverini, accomplished Pimco veterans whose expertise in rates/derivatives and corporate credit respectively creates complementary strengths. Strong collaboration among a dozen short-term specialists drives the strategy’s success, and the strategic addition of these comanagers in July 2021 enhanced depth and alleviated key-person risk with Schneider. The team benefits from abundant resources and draws extensively on Pimco’s world-class global investment platform of analysts, traders, macroeconomic experts, and risk managers.The strategy’s proven process, which focuses on short-term and liquidity markets, stands out versus peers. Teamwork is the key to the strategy’s success, yet consistent analytical inputs strongly reinforce liquidity and capital preservation objectives. The team ably leverages its comprehensive global toolkit, which is deeper than most peers. The comanagers incorporate insights from the firm’s renowned macroeconomic forecasts to construct portfolios with securities designed to maximize yield and total return potential.Robust corporate and structured products research teams actively support the managers and provide valuable bottom-up intelligence, as investment-grade credit and securitized debt feature prominently (typically 70%-90% of assets) and deliver a yield advantage over peers. The exchange-traded fund avoids less conventional areas, such as high-yield bonds, non-US developed debt, and non-US currencies, but can invest up to 5% of assets in emerging-markets debt to complement core holdings. The managers demonstrate flexibility by dynamically adjusting portfolio duration across their zero-to-one-year range, and while the ETF extensively uses derivatives, Pimco has consistently proved its ability to manage these instruments effectively.The strategy touts a solid long-term track record. Over Schneider’s tenure from December 2009, the US-domiciled ETF’s 1.9% annualized gain through July 2025 outperformed the unique ultrashort bond Morningstar Category peers’ median 1.8% result and landed ahead of most peers. Volatility-adjusted results proved equally solid, with the Sharpe ratio in the top half of rivals. While this dynamic approach has generated slightly higher volatility than peers, its occasional stumbles have been well contained.Paul Olmsted, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the Pimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active Exchange-Traded Fund.Pimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active ESG Exchange-Traded FundMorningstar Category: US Fund Ultrashort BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.24%12 Month Yield: 4.23%Veteran leadership, specialized short-term expertise, effective collaboration, and a time-tested process makes Pimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active ESG ETF a best-in-class selection among ultrashort bond peers. This exchange-traded fund is more constrained than its sibling, Pimco Short-Term.Lead manager Jerome Schneider heads an impressive team of dedicated ultrashort and liquidity markets specialists. Schneider is well known as the face of the firm’s short-term strategies and skillfully collaborates with comanagers Andrew Wittkop and Nate Chiaverini, accomplished Pimco veterans whose expertise in rates/derivatives and corporate credit, respectively, creates complementary strengths. Strong collaboration among a dozen short-term specialists drives the strategy’s success, and the strategic addition of these comanagers in July 2021 enhanced depth and alleviates key-person risk with Schneider. Also, comanager Jelle Brons, a global credit specialist, focuses on ESG implementation. The team benefits from abundant resources and draws extensively on Pimco’s world-class global investment platform of analysts, traders, macroeconomic experts, ESG analysts, and risk managers.The strategy’s proven process, which focuses on short-term and liquidity markets, stands out versus peers. Teamwork is the key to the strategy’s success, yet consistent analytical inputs strongly reinforce liquidity and capital preservation objectives. The team ably leverages its comprehensive global toolkit, which is deeper than most peers. The comanagers incorporate insights from the firm’s renowned macroeconomic forecasts to construct portfolios with securities designed to maximize yield and total return potential.Robust corporate and structured products research teams actively support the managers and provide valuable bottom-up intelligence, as investment-grade credit and securitized debt feature prominently (typically 65%-95% of assets) and deliver a yield advantage over peers. The ETF avoids less conventional areas, such as high-yield bonds, and non-US currencies but can invest up to 10% of assets in non-US developed markets and 5% in emerging-markets debt to complement core holdings. The managers demonstrate flexibility by dynamically adjusting portfolio duration across their zero-to-one-year range, and while the ETF extensively uses derivatives, Pimco has consistently proved its ability to manage these instruments effectively.The strategy touts a solid long-term track record. Throughout Schneider’s tenure from January 2020, the ETF’s 2.9% annualized gain through July 2025 matched the unique ultrashort bond Morningstar Category peers’ median result. Volatility-adjusted results proved equally solid, with the Sharpe ratio near that of its typical peer. Over this period, the fund’s tamer approach generated one of the lowest standard deviations in the category. In most stressed periods, though, the ETF’s drawdown was near its category average.Paul Olmsted, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the Pimco Enhanced Short Maturity Active ESG Exchange-Traded Fund.T. Rowe Price Floating Rate ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Bank LoanMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.61%12 Month Yield: 6.97%T. Rowe Price Floating Rate’s well-earned spot among the best bank-loan strategies reflects strong leadership, deep experience, a formidable supporting cast, and a time-tested approach.This review covers two mutual funds (the oldest version to which this report applies), Institutional Floating Rate and Floating Rate, T. Rowe Price Floating Rate ETF, and the separately managed account composite.Sole manager Paul Massaro has more than 25 years of industry experience, draws on deep supporting resources, and has fostered a highly collaborative culture. Named to the fund in May 2009, Massaro advanced to head T. Rowe Price’s high-yield and bank-loan platform in 2021. He has built a formidable group, including a 20-person fundamental leveraged credit research team, four traders, and three quantitative analysts. In 2024, the team seamlessly transitioned the leadership of the global fixed-income research to veteran Michael Lambe, who succeeded the retired former head.The credit researchers contribute valuable insights through diligent fundamental research and relative value recommendations that drive portfolio decisions. The research team, averaging about 15 years of industry experience, assigns internal credit and conviction ratings from one (highest) to five (lowest), emphasizing improving credits. This highly collaborative approach incorporates input from the entire team and shapes overall portfolio construction.This collaboration centers on corporate fundamentals and relative value opportunities, emphasizing BB and B rated loans while maintaining selectivity within CCC rated and second-lien debt. Attractive relative valuations in CCC rated and below loans prompted the team to maintain this exposure to around 10% of assets since 2020, when it was typically a mid-single-digit stake. The team’s access to harder-to-source deals, such as second-lien loans, through strong private equity sponsor relationships, provides a competitive edge. Sensible guidelines promote diversification, while the team concentrates investments in higher-conviction issues. For example, the strategy’s 15 largest holdings represented about 26.4% of assets at year-end 2024 compared with approximately 5.7% for the same issuers in the Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index.Effective risk management and avoiding defaulted issuers have generated compelling long-term performance. Over the trailing 10 years through December 2025, the institutional shares’ 5.5% annualized return outpaced the bank-loan category median 5.1% gain—a top quintile result. The fund’s risk-adjusted results, as measured by its Sharpe ratio, also ranked among the category’s best. The team’s ability to avoid the riskiest issuers and structures dampened volatility, which has consistently ranked among the category’s lowest. In 2025, the strategy avoided higher-profile defaults from First Brands and Tropicana and beat its typical peer by more than 1 percentage point and 85% of rivals. The strategy typically lands in the middle of rivals when markets rebound while suffering less than most peers in market selloffs.Paul Olmsted, senior analystRead Morningstar’s full report on the T. Rowe Price Floating Rate ETF.iShares Total Return Active ETFMorningstar Category: US Fund Intermediate Core-Plus BondMorningstar Medalist Rating: GoldProspectus Net Expense Ratio: 0.38%12 Month Yield: 4.76%BlackRock Total Return has made adjustments but still benefits from nearly unrivaled scale and expertise.The firm wasn’t content with the fund’s more recent application of those advantages, though, and parted ways with comanager David Rogal in September 2025. He handled much of the fund’s day-to-day execution after the early 2023 retirement of comanager Bob Miller, and results were modest. CIO Rick Rieder promoted Russ Brownback to deputy CIO and added him as a manager here, along with two other additions from the group’s multisector leadership team. Brownback joined BlackRock together with Rieder in 2009 when the company acquired their firm, R3. He comanages several BlackRock offerings, including the flagship fund Strategic Income Opportunities.Rieder believes in leveraging the full breadth of BlackRock’s resources by marrying the macro and sector allocation views of his multisector portfolio managers with expertise and contributions from his massive sector specialist teams. He didn’t believe the fund had been getting the full benefit of that collaboration under Rogal, though, and Brownback’s ascent is a course correction to ensure that it does going forward.Central to Rieder’s approach is identifying big trends affecting markets and positioning portfolios accordingly. That can mean taking on a variety of out-of-index bets, including high-yield bonds and nonagency mortgages, for example, and the team relies on BlackRock’s Aladdin system to help identify and monitor risks inherent in its portfolio decisions. Preventing any single bet from overwhelming the portfolio is a critical aim, and the strategy has been circumspect in taking on credit risk relative to more aggressive peers since Rieder took over in 2010.As noted, there have been setbacks. The fund’s longer-term trailing returns are still muted by its anemic stretch from 2022 through 2024, and it’s fair to question why Rieder and his colleagues didn’t shift gears sooner. Their redoubled attention and support from a seasoned army of nearly 500 investment professionals, however, bode well going forward.Eric Jacobson, senior principalRead Morningstar’s full report on the iShares Total Return Active ETF.How to Screen for More Top Active Bond ETFsInvestors can use our Morningstar Investor Screener tool to find more promising active bond ETFs focused on taxable bonds. To build your screen, start with the following filters:Security Type: Select “ETFs” from the drop-down box.Asset Class: Select “Taxable Bond.” If you’d like to include ETFs investing in municipal bonds on your list, you can select “Municipal Bond” here, too.Active Strategies Only: Click the “+ Add Filter” button. On the pop-out box, beneath “Funds,” select “Basics.” Then choose “Index Fund.” In the left-hand navigation of the screener tool, “Index Fund” will now appear as a filter. In the Index Fund filter’s drop-down box, select “No.” This will exclude passive strategies and leave only active bond ETFs on the list.Medalist Rating (Overall): Select Gold, Silver, and Bronze to see a full list of all of the active ETFs that earn positive Medalist Ratings from Morningstar.From here, you can refine the screen further. For instance, you can restrict the list of bond ETFs to specific fixed-income categories by clicking on the Morningstar Category drop-down box. Or you can use the “+ Add Filter” button to make further refinements to your list, such as filtering out funds/ETFs with yields that are too high or too low or only include investments with expense ratios at or below a particular level.