Reading: Bonds
The bond market—often called the debt market, fixed-income market, or credit market—is the collective name given to all trades and issues of debt securities. Governments typically issue bonds in order to raise capital to pay down debts or fund infrastructural improvements.
Publicly traded companies issue bonds when they need to finance business expansion projects or maintain ongoing operations. Typically the bond offering of a public corporation trades on the same exchange as its stock. All government debt securities trade on the NASDAQ.
What Is a Bond?
When you purchase a stock, you’re buying a microscopic stake in the company. It’s yours and you get to share in the growth and also in the loss. On the other hand, a bond is a type of loan. When a company needs funds for any number of reasons, they may issue a bond to finance that loan. Much like a home mortgage, they ask for a certain amount of money for a fixed period of time. When that time is up, the company repays the bond in full. During that time the company pays the investor a set amount of interest, called the coupon, on set dates (often quarterly).
The main types of bonds are:
- Government
- Corporate
- Municipal
- Mortgage
- Treasury
Bonds represent the debts of issuers, such as companies or governments. These debts are sliced up and sold to investors in smaller units. For example, a $1 million debt issue may be allocated to one-thousand $1,000 bonds. In general, bonds are considered to be more conservative investments than stocks, and are more senior to stocks if an issuer declares bankruptcy. Bonds also typically pay regular interest payments to investors, and return the full principal loaned when the bond matures. As a result, bond prices vary inversely with interest rates, falling when rates go up and vice-versa.
The bond markets are a very liquid and active, but can take second seat to stocks for many retail or part-time investors. The bond markets are often reserved for professional investors, pension and hedge funds, and financial advisors, but that doesn’t mean that part-time investors should steer clear of bonds. In fact, bonds play an increasingly important part in your portfolio as you age and, because of that, learning about them now makes good financial sense. In fact having a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds is advisable for investors of all ages and risk tolerance.
