Gyroscopic Investing

Can anyone educate me on what I should be looking at for a bond ETF when it comes to maturity vs duration? For example, I want to target the 10 year Treasury in an ETF. IEF has a duration of 7.39 and an avg maturity of 8.49. TLH has a duration of 10.84 and an avg maturity of 15.02.

Which of those numbers should I be focused on when trying to target a specific maturity range?

Thanks!

My understanding is that for portfolio risk, duration matters. Maturity is a calendar date, but because not all bonds are created equal (default risk, call risk), duration is related to but not equal to maturity. Only for Treasuries are they the same.

Why not barbell, put long and short in your bond allocation

Duration tells you how much the price of the bond/fund will go up (or down) if the interest rate falls (goes up) 1%.

So if you have a bond fund with a duration of 10, and if the interest rate goes up 1%, then your bond/fund will go down in value 10%

They actually back-calculate the duration of a bond fund by observing market price change as a function of interest rate change. It's empirical, not bottoms up based on what they own. Complicated stuff.