When it comes to your bond money, you want to live to fight another day. To make sure you do, I recommend that you keep the duration short and the credit quality high. Duration measures a bondโ€™s sensitivity to interest rates. Itโ€™s the predicted percentage change in a bondโ€™s price given a 1% change in interest rates. So if a bond has a duration of 2, and interest rates change by 1%, the price of the bond will change by 2%. A well-known financial publication recently produced a list of defensive bond funds. Only one of the funds had a short enough duration for my comfort level. So pay attention to duration when youโ€™re doing your investment work. Itโ€™s easy to be led astray and reach too high for yield, especially with all the hype that you read or hear.