Jul 10th, 2009
Happy Birthday Wellington!
One of the oldies but goodies in the mutual fund universe is the Vanguard Wellington Income Fund–80 years old this past week!
The Wellington has had a remarkable long term record–CNNMoney.com states that Wellington has an annualized gain of 8% over those 80 years, and a 10 year annualized return of 4.4%, which beats the pants off of the broad market’s essentially breakeven performance over that time. Even this year, the fund is up 4.56%; considerably more than the basically breakeven broad market.
While I don’t own the Wellington, which is big into dividend paying stocks (about 60-70% of its holdings are stocks) and the rest in bonds, it’s not only outlived the vast majority of funds that have been created during its lifetime, it’s outperformed them too. It’s also another in the Vanguard family of low expense no load funds–every cent counts.
So let’s celebrate a great birthday! Vanguard’s a great company, and Wellington has proven that it’s a great fund over time. Maybe I’ll buy in as a way to celebrate.
