A study done by the New York bond dealer Gabriele, Hueglin & Cashman concludes that in a six-year period from 1980 to 1986, bond funds were consistently outperformed by individual bonds, sometimes by as much as 2 percent a year. Moreover, the bond funds did worse relative to bonds the longer the funds were held. The benefits of expert management were exceeded by the expenses that were extracted from the funds to support the experts.
