Perhaps if you are comparing short/intermediate term government bonds versus a fund that hold comparable bonds this may make sense. However, I would think that the value of a bond fund comes into play when it invests in higher yielding corporate bonds. Now you are comparing low-risk, but correspondingly low return government bonds with a fund holding higher risk and but higher return corporate bonds. In this type of bond fund, the manager earns his/her expense ratio by selecting bonds with the best risk/reward ratio.
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