"TB" <b...@p...net> wrote in message
news:5ZhEk.1686$x%.1444@nlpi070.nbdc.sbc.com...
> h...@g...com wrote:
>
> The principal objection I hear is this idea of a bond having a fixed
> maturity date, but the bond fund not having that. For some strange reason
> that's bad and there is this appeal of "well if I hold it I get my money
> so who cares what happens along the way." In talking it through it's easy
> to show the bond fund's lack of a maturity date as being somewhat
> irrelevant,

When I first started investing, a financial manager told me about getting
his parents to buy a bond mutual fund. He explained it thusly: if you buy a
cow for the amount of milk it will give you, why do you care how much the
cow is worth on any given day?

This made it vastly simple for me to understand the volatility that might
arise in income funds. Not that I was buying income funds back then, but
it's something I've never forgotten, and has really helped me in the nerves
department for investing in general.

Elizabeth Richardson

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