Bond ETFs ranked by the Rate Cushion Score

How far can rates rise in a year before the year's income is gone? Rate Cushion Score is where a fund sits among the bond ETFs it can honestly be compared with, on that one question.

That is 10 sets in this category rather than one: 42 high-yield, bank-loan and multisector bond ETFs with a short duration (lowest 1.2, median 50, top 98.8), 32 investment-grade bond ETFs with a short duration (lowest 1.6, median 50, top 98.4), 30 corporate bond ETFs with an intermediate duration (lowest 1.7, median 51.7, top 98.3), 26 investment-grade bond ETFs with an intermediate duration (lowest 1.9, median 53.8, top 96.2), 22 national municipal bond ETFs with an intermediate duration (lowest 2.3, median 50, top 97.7), 20 international bond ETFs with an intermediate duration (lowest 2.5, median 50, top 97.5), 20 government bond ETFs with an intermediate duration (lowest 2.5, median 52.5, top 97.5), 16 national municipal bond ETFs with a short duration (lowest 3.1, median 50, top 96.9), 13 government bond ETFs with a long duration (lowest 3.8, median 46.2, top 96.2) and 12 national municipal bond ETFs with a long duration (lowest 4.2, median 45.9, top 95.8). It is a rank inside a set turned into a percentile, so no fund reaches 100 and none reaches 0. A percentile has no weights to argue with and can be recomputed by anyone with the file. A high score is not a recommendation and a low one is not a warning. One year's income against today's duration; it ignores credit risk, and both figures move. It counts a year of income against today's duration, and a fund's income and duration both move: a cushion is where a fund stood on the dates beside it, not a promise about next year. It says nothing about credit: a high-yield fund's wide cushion is paid for with default risk, which is why each holdings group is ranked only among itself. Capital-gain cash is not income and is left out, and a fund whose issuer does not separate the two is left out by name rather than counted whole. Where an issuer has not yet classified this year's payments and prints them as income, they are counted as printed and the score says provisional until year-end.