Corporate Bonds Basic Facts

                                     

Pros in the financial industry constantly get the bond market wrong. Note that I’m referring to professionals, not amateurs.

                       

They make up well over 80% of the market so they should know better. And the media are usually also in error, when reporting about bonds.

                       

At the first sign of economic problems, there is talk about corporate defaults and their effect on the bond market. How bond prices are bound to fall because of the risk of possible defaults. And with that talk, the bond market weakens and prices do fall.

                       

But remember: The possibility of default is very quickly factored into bond prices. And the higher will be the yield, as a direct relationship.

                       

Furthermore, the media hardly ever discuss how you can avoid loss, along with any inflation hit, with proper use of bond duration principles. (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)