To be clear on bonds for those fairly new to this: a lot of the talk is about Premium bonds (UK) on here, not to be confused with the global bond market where you can choose (well depending on the broker or bank) whether to purchase bonds from a country, municipality (US), corporation, trade on the secondary markets, purchase bonds through an etf, or through a CEF (closed end fund) / Investment Trust. Depending on your tax residency, for retail accounts, the best balance, imo, is usually a CEF of investment grade debt, as CEFs are permitted to use leverage. So the underlying is still of a very good quality, the leverage ups the yield, obviously you pay more on the expense ratio side. Blackrock and Guggenheim do a number of such funds for the US, good management teams, track record. Blackrock is probably the best in this sphere. Off the top of my head I would recommend BHK, BKT and GBAB as long term holds for bond funds, as long as your country has a decent taxation agreement with the US / a version of that fund is available to you.