Corporate Bonds

Posts Tagged ‘investing’

Question: Investing in Single Bonds as a Small Time Investor?

Is there anyplace where a small investor can buy bonds? And I don't mean I-Bonds or any of those direct Government treasuries. But I mean Corporate Bonds that might be yielding 8% or 12%?? Can you buy just (1) Corporate Bond?

Answer: Of course. Many brokerages support this. However, it used to be that it was quite difficult for an individual investor to get a good deal on buying a bond (and difficult to even find out much about availability and prices). Recently this has gotten easier with the new MarketAxess system -- Fidelity was one of the big adopters of this system. So if you're interested in buying individual bonds in particular, before you select a broker first check out the extent of their bond tools and access to individual bonds.

However, it's hard to diversify your risk as a individual investor in bonds, unless you have substantial funds, so bond mutual funds is still a better choice for most people. Plus it's still just plain easier.

http://www.bondsonline.com/News_Releases/news11260601.php

Bond Outlook: Corporate Bond Sales Soar to $41 Billion, Highest in Eight Months

Question: Is there an ETF that buys US inflation linked Corporate Bonds? How about a mutual fund?

Answer: afaik, there are very few inflation linked corporate bond issues and thus there is no such ETF or mutual fund.

think about it -- why would a corporation want to issue inflation linked bonds?

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you can devise a strategy to approximate the same thing in a couple of ways. If the how to do this doesn't come easily to mind, I suggest not trying it -- you'd not understand the risks and thus would likely end up a big loser.

Arnold Van Den Berg: Thoughts on the inflation-deflation argument