Vanguard, the second-largest U.S. issuer of exchange traded funds and also one of the largest issuers of fixed income index funds and ETFs, said Tuesday it is swapping indexes for three of its popular bond index funds. The move also pertains to the ETF share classes of those products.
The ETFs scheduled to get new benchmarks are the Vanguard Short-Term Government Bond ETF (NASDAQ: VGSH), Vanguard Intermediate-Term Government Bond ETF (NASDAQ: VGIT) and the Vanguard Long-Term Government Bond ETF (NASDAQ: VGLT).
Those ETFs “are expected to transition from Bloomberg Barclays US Government Float-Adjusted indexes to Bloomberg Barclays US Treasury Float Adjusted indexes in the fourth quarter of this year. The funds will be renamed to reflect the new benchmarks,” according to a statement issued by Pennsylvania-based Vanguard.
The Vanguard Short-Term Government Bond ETF will become the Vanguard Short-Term Treasury ETF and track the Bloomberg Barclays US Treasury Bond 1-3 Year Term Float Adjusted Index. VGIT will become the Vanguard Intermediate-Term Treasury ETF and start following the Bloomberg Barclays US Treasury Bond 3-10 Year Term Float Adjusted Index.