 you have some your long-term bonds drop in value faster but you have your short-term bonds come and do so you can reinvest that money at today's higher interest rate so the idea is it's a way to hedge your bets with interest rates in the bond market so my answer would be as of today i don't know that laddering is important as it was when rates are going up because right now i i can't imagine rates going up much more if any more again i think we might have peaked