Non-Retirement: Bond Short-Term

Wylie Pick: American Performance Short Term Income APSTX

Selecting from mutual funds available through Etrade with no load or transaction fee and an initial $2500 investment or lower minimum and subsequent $100 or lower minimums, when looking for a Short-Term Bond fund, I have five options.

Two options have a 5 star rating from Morningstar. They are both American Performance funds but one is called "American Performance Interm Bond Fund." This caught my eye because Intermediate Bonds are held for a longer term and ahve their own category and after jumping over to morningstar, I find that in December of last year, this fund switched from the Intermediate category to Short-Term.

Since I am looking for a Short-Term fund, I rule this one out as an impostor but it illustrates an issue- funds with categories in their titles can be deceptive when a category changes but the title does not.

So that leaves one 5 star fund and since it has low expenses, American Performance Short Term Income APSTX is our pick.