BND calculator
Historical growth of Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF using Bloomberg US Aggregate Float-Adjusted Bond return series. Dividends reinvested at year-end; expense ratio drag negligible at 0.03%.
$10,000 invested in BND at inception (2007) with dividends reinvested through end of 2024 would be worth approximately $58,020 nominal ($37,288 in 2007 dollars). Annualized nominal: 10.26%; real: 7.59%. Bond returns diverge from stocks — historical S&P proxy is NOT applicable; page uses long-run 5% nominal bond assumption.
Uses annual S&P 500 total return (with dividends reinvested) and CPI-U inflation, 1928–2024. Source: Damodaran (NYU Stern) + Shiller CAPE + BLS. Excludes fees, taxes, and bid/ask. Real return = nominal ÷ cumulative CPI.
BND at a glance
| Full name | Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF |
| Provider | Vanguard |
| Expense ratio | 0.03% |
| Inception | 2007 |
| Assets under management | $110B |
| Dividend yield | 4.50% |
| Return series used | Bloomberg US Aggregate Float-Adjusted Bond |
Why bond funds are a different asset class
Bond index funds do not compound like stocks — returns come from coupon yield plus small price moves driven by interest rates, which is why this page uses a flat long-run bond assumption instead of the equity series. Their role is ballast: in 2008, aggregate bond funds gained while stocks halved. Their limit was shown in 2022, when rising rates produced the worst bond year in modern history (-13%) at the same time stocks fell. Expected return today is roughly the current yield.
What 0.03% costs over 30 years
Expense ratios compound against you exactly the way returns compound for you. On a $10,000 position growing at a 10% gross return for 30 years, BND's 0.03% fee quietly consumes about $1,422 of the final balance. That is the lowest fee in its category on this site — fee drag is one variable you fully control.
BND vs same-category peers
| Fund | ER | Yield | Since |
|---|---|---|---|
| BND (this page) | 0.03% | 4.5% | 2007 |
| AGG | 0.03% | 4.5% | 2003 |
How this calculator works
For each start year, we apply the year-by-year total return of the Bloomberg US Aggregate Float-Adjusted Bond to the entered starting amount, compounding annually with dividends reinvested at year-end. This mirrors what an actual buy-and-hold BND holder would have experienced, before fees and taxes. Expense ratio is intentionally excluded from the historical result to keep the underlying series comparable across ETFs; for a full lifetime fee estimate at 0.03%, use the projection tab in our fund fee analyzer.