With a bond fund, you may not get to make that call at all. A fund holds bonds for thousands of people. When enough of them take their money out, the manager sells bonds to pay them at whatever the market offers that morning, and everyone still in the fund absorbs it. They don't have to be panicking. They may just need the money, same as you.
So pull the ticker of every bond fund and ETF off your statement and search for that ticker on the company's own site. You want two numbers: average duration or effective duration, in years, and the 30-day Securities and Exchange Commission yield, as a percentage. If duration isn't on the front page, it's behind a tab labeled "portfolio," "characteristics" or "composition."
On the yield, take the 30-day SEC number specifically. Not distribution yield, not 12-month yield. The SEC figure is standardized and looks forward. The other two look backward and can make a fund look better than it is when rates have been moving.
If you can't find duration anywhere, call the number on your statement and ask what the fund's average duration is. It's an ordinary question. Whoever picks up will have the answer.
One more thing
