Taxpayer Identification Number, a U. When you invest in a municipal bond, you might help improve a local school system, build a hospital, or develop a public garden. These agencies use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols to indicate the creditworthiness of bond issuers. There are two ways to make money by investing in bonds. A broker, for example, might sell a certain bond at a premium meaning, above its face value , while another broker might charge an even higher premium. Suddenly, your bond drops in value, and if you hold it, you’ll lose out on potential earnings by getting stuck with that lower rate. Your ability to sell a CD on the secondary market is subject to market conditions.
Want to learn more about bonds and how to invest in them? This guide will tell you everything you need to know.
The following will give you a basic overview of the process as well as links to some additional resources that can explain, in-depth, different areas you may want to explore. By the time you’re done reading this content and working through the linked resources, you should know enough about bond investing to ask informed questions of your brokerfinancial adviser, registered investment advisoror asset management company. The biggest benefit is that you can feel more confident, objective, and less emotional about your investment decisions inest you understand the language and risks. Bonds are a type of investment that results in an investor lending money to the bond issuer in exchange for interest bohds. Bonds are one of the most important investments available for those who follow an income investing philosophy, hoping to live off the money generated by their portfolio. With the variety of different options available to you, including municipal bonds, commercial bonds, savings bonds, and treasury bonds, you need to know which is right for your unique situation as well as the dangers presented by owning different types of bonds.
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Show less Government entities and corporations raise money by issuing bonds. The issuer of a bond is a borrower who makes interest payments each year. Investors purchase bonds as an investment. The investor earns interest each year and is repaid their original investment on a specific maturity date. As an investor, you can buy individual bonds or a bond mutual fund or exchange-traded fund ETF. Not quite!
Individual bonds
Most of us are used to borrowing money in some capacity, whether it’s mortgaging our homes or bumming a few bucks off a friend when we realize we left our cash at home. Well, just as borrowing is a part of life for everyday people, it’s a practice companies and municipalities uphold, as. Even the federal government does it. By issuing bonds. Bonds come in several varieties — corporatemunicipaland government — and though their nuances might differ, they’re all the same at their core: debt instruments used to raise capital.
When an entity issues a bond, it asks for a certain indigidual of money. It then promises to pay back that investment, plus interest, over a specified period of time. Here, we’ll dive into the world of bond investing so you can determine whether they should have a place invesr your portfolio. When you buy a bond, you’re loaning a sum of money to its issuer for a iin period of time.
In exchange, the issuer promises obnds make regular interest payments at a predetermined rate until the bond comes due, and then repay your principal upon maturity. Now, there are exceptions to this rule, such as zero coupon bonds — those don’t pay interest, but are sold below face value. Most bonds, however, follow the same formula: You invest a sum of bbonds, collect interest payments on it, and get your money back upon maturity. There are two ways to make money by investing in bonds.
The first is to hold those bonds until their maturity date and how to invest in individual bonds interest payments on. Bond interest is usually paid twice a year. The second way to profit from bonds is to sell them at a price that’s higher than imvest you pay initially. Given that stocks are traded on a public exchange, binds fairly easy to buy and sell. Bonds, on the other hand, aren’t traded publicly, but rather, trade over the counterwhich means that investors must buy them from brokers.
Treasury bonds, however, are an exception — you can buy those directly from the U. The problem with this system is that, because bond transactions don’t occur in a centralized location, investors have a harder time knowing whether too getting a fair price. A broker, for example, might sell a certain bond at a premium meaning, above its face valuewhile another broker might charge an even higher premium.
Thankfully, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority FINRA regulates the bond market to some extent by posting transaction prices as that data becomes available, but investors can sometimes experience a lag in getting that information.
This isn’t inveest reason not to buy bonds, but it’s something to be aware of. Although bonds are considered a lower-risk investment than stocksthey’re by no means risk-free.
All it takes is for a bond to defaultand you, as an investor, could ihvest out some money. So how do you know which bond issuers are the most and least likely to fall down on their obligations? The best indicators are your bonds’ ratings. A bond rating is a score of sorts that measures the financial strength of the entity issuing the bond. These agencies use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols to indicate the creditworthiness of bond issuers.
Standard and Poor’s and Fitch use a similar ratings system that ranks bonds from best quality to worst as follows:. From there, numbers and symbols are added to further break down a bond’s individual rating. Moody’s uses numbers to convey the same point, with Aa1 being the best Aa rating, followed by Aa2 and Aa3.
Generally speaking, the higher a bond’s rating, the safer an investment it is. But highly rated bonds also tend to offer lower interest rates than bonds with lower ratings. That’s because investors indiviudal rewarded for taking on the additional risk associated with poorly rated bonds. In fact, bonds rated below BBB- or Baa3 are known as junk indivdiualwhich means they’re not considered investment grade, but have the potential to offer much higher yields.
Although reviewing a bond’s rating t help boonds decide whether it’s a good investmentit’s not a perfect. Circumstances can change over time, and a bond with a strong rating one year can get downgraded the next year. If you’re going to buy bonds, keep tabs on how they’re doing ratingswise. If you see that a bond you own keeps dropping on the ratings scale, you may want to unload it before it defaults or loses too much value. One advantage of putting bonds in your portfolio is that they’re a relatively safe investment.
Bond invwst don’t tend to fluctuate as much as stock prices, so they’re less likely to keep you up at night worrying. Another benefit of bonds is that they offer a predictable income stream. Because bonds pay a fixed amount of interest twice a year, you can generally rely on that yo to come in as expected.
Municipal and Treasury bonds offer the additional benefit of paying tax-exempt interest to varying degrees. Furthermore, some investors like municipal bonds because they offer the chance to invest inveest communities. When you invest in a municipal bond, you might help improve a local school system, build a hospital, or develop a public garden.
It’s that social angle, combined with the potential for completely tax-free interest income, that makes some investors forgo the higher interest rates of corporate bonds and invest in municipal bonds instead. Though there are plenty of good reasons to invest in bondsthere are some disadvantages you should know about, as. For one thing, bonds require you to lock your money away for extended periods of time.
For example, if you buy a bond with a year term, you’re committed to keeping that money invested for 10 years. With stocks, you’re not locking in to a specific time frame — individhal can buy a stock one day and invet it ln weeks later if you see fit.
Of course, individhal always the option to sell your bonds once you buy them and get your investment back that way. But then you’re taking the risk that the market value won’t go. Speaking of risk, because bonds are a relatively long-term investment, you’ll face what’s called interest-rate risk once you bnds. As we just learned, each bond pays a individaul amount of.
Suddenly, your bond drops in value, and if you hold it, you’ll lose out on potential earnings by getting stuck with that lower rate. Furthermore, while bonds are a relatively safe investment, they’re not completely risk-free. If an issuer defaults on its obligations, you risk losing out on interest payments, getting your principal repaid, or.
Another key point to consider is that bonds aren’t all that conducive to long-term investment individal. That’s because the return on investment you’ll get from bonds is substantially lower than what you’ll get with stocks.
Consider this: Between andstocks averaged an If you load up on bonds and average a 5. But if you go with stocks instead and individuql an indivifual annual And that’s important, because without that growth, you’ll have a hard time keeping up with inflation and maintaining your buying power when you’re older. One final drawback of buying bonds is that, due to i way they trade, there’s less transparency in the bond market than in the stock market.
As such, brokers can sometimes get away with charging bpnds prices, and you might have a harder time determining whether the price you’re quoted for a given bond is fair. Clearly, bonds have their pros and cons, so the question remains: Should you invest in bonds? There are a number of scenarios where doing so makes sense. First, if you’re heavily invested in stocks, bonds are a good way to diversify your portfolio and protect yourself from market volatility.
Furthermore, if you’re the risk-averse type who truly can’t bear the thought of losing money, bonds might be a more suitable investment for you than stocks. Of course, the safest investment you’ll come across is none other than cash in the bank, but bonds typically pay better when it comes to.
Another reason to consider bonds is if you’re near retirement or already retired. At that point in your life, you ijvest not individjal the time to ride out stock market downturnsin which case bonds are a safer place for your money. In fact, most people are invets to shift away from stocks and into bonds as they get older, and it’s not terrible advice provided you don’t make the mistake of dumping your stocks completely in retirement. One disadvantage of buying bonds is having to lock up your money for what could be a longer period of time.
That’s why it often pays to build a bond ladder. With a bond ladder, you’re staggering your investments so that bpnds have indjvidual bonds coming due at different times. This way, individuak interest rates rise during that total investment window or other opportunities come up, you’ll have better access to your money than you would by putting all of your cash into a single investment. The challenge of buying individual bonds is that investors need to vet each individual issuer. That’s why many investors prefer to put their money into bond funds.
With a bond fundinvestments are pooled into a single bucket and are used to buy various bonds. The benefit of bond funds is that they offer diversification within the bond market.
Imagine you buy bonds from a single issuer, gow that issuer defaults. Suddenly, you’re out of luck. But if you own a fund that’s invested in many bonds, and only one defaults, the impact won’t be nearly as severe. On the flip side, bond funds are ivest to the same interest-rate risk we talked about. Though there’s a downside to buying bonds, in many cases, bonds can be a solid addition to your portfolio. It pays to explore your options for investing in bonds so that you can reap the various benefits they offer, both now and in the future.
Updated: Apr 10, at AM. Published: Apr 22, at AM. Author Bio Maurie Backman is a personal finance writer who’s passionate about educating. Her goal is to make financial topics interesting because they often aren’t and she believes that a healthy dose of sarcasm never hurt. In her somewhat limited spare time, she enjoys playing in nature, watching hockey, and curling up with a good book.
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Your Guide to Understanding and Investing in Bonds
Funds carry an annual expense ratio, which usually includes management and other fees. Your Money. For example, if you buy a bond with a year term, you’re committed to keeping that money invested for 10 years. Even the federal government does it. Bond individjal is usually paid twice a year. By issuing bonds. Higher-rated bonds historically have a lower risk of default. Personal Finance.
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