Gyroscopic Investing

I understand that Fidelity L/T Treasury fund (FLBIX) has shorter duration than TLT and hence is less volatile. It's expense ratio is 0.20, which is just a tad bigger than TLT. Current yield is 3.88% for TLT and 3.85 for FLBIX.
However, I can't understand why StoctCharts shows such a huge lag in performance over the last 3 years:
http://stockcharts.com/charts/performan ... ?TLT,FLBIX

I thought the long-term returns should not differ too much. Can anyone shed some light?

Thanks!

Morningstar 3yr performance:
fblix: 10.30%
TLT:  9.93%

Not that huge?

http://performance.morningstar.com/fund ... ture=en-US

jmourik wrote: Morningstar 3yr performance:
fblix: 10.30%
TLT:  9.93%

Not that huge?

http://performance.morningstar.com/fund ... ture=en-US

As to your note regarding 3yr performance: I'm not sure if 3 years is a long enough period to draw conclusions, it could be data mining issue, i.e. during these 3 years FLBIX happened to carry more bonds with higher yield. If you look at the chart below, TLT outperformed in 2007 and 2008 and lagged in 2009, so it really might be just noise. Hopefully local experts will jump in with explanation.

I posted my question at the BH forum and got it answered - it turned out StockCharts charts were incorrect.

I have no explanation for the fund return differences. Could be many things. The benefit of owning the bonds directly is that you don't need to worry about how a fund is being managed behind the scenes. But if that is not an option, then TLT and probably FLBIX are about as good as you can find out there.