Fund Evaluator:

PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 Overview

PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 (PIFEX) is an actively managed Taxable Bond Short-Term Bond fund. PGIM launched the fund in 2017.

The investment seeks high current income consistent with the preservation of principal. The fund invests, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of its investable assets in bonds of corporations with varying maturities. For purposes of this policy, bonds include all fixed income securities, other than preferred stock, and corporations include all private issuers. The effective duration of the fund's portfolio is generally less than three years.

About PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 (PIFEX)

There are 4 members of the management team with an average tenure of 6.84 years: Rajat Shah (2024), David Del Vecchio (2012), Matthew Csontos (2019), Danielle Navarro (2021). Management tenure is more important for actively managed funds than passive index funds.

The fund has 2 primary benchmarks: Bloomberg US Agg Bond TR USD index with a weighting of 100% and Bloomberg Credit 1-5 Yr TR USD index with a weighting of 100%. PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 has 662 securities in its portfolio. The top 10 holdings constitute 9.0% of the fund’s assets. The fund meets the SEC requirement of being classified as a diversified fund. The fund is not considered to have an ESG focus with its investment selection and management.

PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 is part of the Fixed Income global asset class and is within the Taxable Bond fund group. PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 has 23.1% of its portfolio invested in foreign issues. The overall assets allocated to domestic stock is 0.0%. There is 0.0% allocated to foreign stock, and 3.1% is allocated to preferred stocks. The bond allocation as a percentage of total assets is 94.2% (71.0% domestic bond, 23.1% foreign bond and 0.0% convertible bond). PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 has 2.7% of the portfolio in cash.

Assets Under Management

The fund has $1 million in total assets, which is below the $904 million average for the Short-Term Bond category. Normally, lower assets under management translates to higher average expense ratios, and greater total assets are desired. However, for some investment categories, such as small-cap investing, it may be difficult for the manager to fully employ the desired active strategy if assets grow too large or too quickly.

PIFEX Performance and Fees

The expense ratio measures how much of a fund’s assets are used for administrative expenses and operating expenses, including adviser fees and fees for the transfer agent and custodial services. The PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 expense ratio is high compared to funds in the Short-Term Bond category. PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 has an expense ratio of 0.88%, which is 33% higher than its category average, making the fund expense ratio grade a D. While it is difficult to predict returns, it is known that high annual expense ratios reduce your rate of return, and excessive fees are difficult to overcome. Active management normally comes with higher expense ratios than passive index management. Certain investment categories such as small company and foreign also normally have higher expense ratios. It is best to compare fund expense ratios against the category averages for meaningful assessments.

High portfolio turnover can translate to higher expenses and lower aftertax returns. PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 has a portfolio turnover rate of 50%, indicating that holds its assets around 0.0 years. By way of comparison, the average portfolio turnover is 135% for the Short-Term Bond category.

Recently, in the month of July 2026, PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 returned -0.2%, which earned it a grade of F, as the Short-Term Bond category had an average return of -0.0%. The letter grades of A, B, C, D and F are based upon relative rankings within the investment category. A grade of A, for example, would indicate that the return is in the highest 20% for that time period compared to all funds in that category.

PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 has a trailing yield of 3.71%, which is below the 4.16% category average. The fund normally distributes its income monthly and its capital gains annually.

It’s natural to seek the best-performing investments, but you must consider the relationship between risk and return and the impact of costs and taxes on your realized returns.

PGIM Short-Term Corporate Bond R2 Grades

Year to date, the fund has returned 0.5%, 0.4 percentage points worse than the category, which translates into a grade of D. The fund has returned 3.0% over the past year (grade of D), 5.1% over the past three years (grade of C) and 1.8% per year over the past five years (grade of D) and 2.2% per year over the past 10 years (grade of C).

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