In my Vanguard taxable investments, I've got things split between VBTLX, VTSAX, and VXUS.
I would like to start shifting more towards bonds as I'm at about 13% now and would like to be about 20% in 3 years and 30% in 10 years when we plan to retire.
However, my lifetime gains/losses for VBTLX is negative. Doesn't this mean I've been effectively losing money since I started investing in this fund? I don't know how to quickly see on the app when I started, but let's say about 2018ish.
If I'm losing money in bonds, what's the best way for me to shift the risk to get to 80/20 and then 70/30 over the next decade? I feel like I would be doing myself a disfavor continuing to put new money in VBTLX, but would like another view.
(PS, to the extent possible, I would be putting new money into the funds to shift the ratio, not selling and rebalancing. If I need to sell instead, I need a little help understanding how that works as I don't want to get taxed more than necessary next year.)
(PPS, we also have money in 401k, etc but those are either target funds or also 3-fund setups but more complicated and I'm not focusing on them right now.)