A Morningstar report compared the performance of a collection of short-term bond funds versus a core index. The result was the short-term bond collective outpacing the core index, making them an ideal alternative in the current times of sticky inflation. In the past year, the short-term bond funds highlighted in the comparison returned an average of 5.10%. "On an annualized rate, short-term bond funds have returned 4.77% over the last three years and 2.17% over the last five,†Morningstar noted, comparing th ...