Articles

This article examines three popular bond investment strategies - the barbell, the bullet and the ladder.

Bond funds are mutual funds that invest in bonds. The funds can invest in government or corporate bonds of short, medium, or long-term maturity. This article explores investing in bond funds versus individual bonds.

There are a lot of fees to watch out for and to understand when you are considering investing in a bond fund (these apply to any mutual fund).

Bearer bonds, also known as coupon bonds are bonds in which the physical certificate is held by the owner rather than being a registered security like bonds are today.

This article will give you the ability to go out and purchase a bond on your own.

US Treasury Series I bonds are inflation indexed savings bonds and provide a good alternative for protecting the value of your capital in rising interest rate environments. The Bureau of the Public Debt is the only seller of these bonds so you are unlikely to learn about them through your bank or broker.eries I bonds are issued by the U.S. Treasury at face value and have a maximum duration of 30 years. These bonds can be sold any time after five years without penalty, and between one and five years after purchase with a loss of the most recent three months interest. Series I bonds are now issued in both paper and electronic format. Whereas the Treasury previous limited annual purchases by a single individual to as much as $60,000 per calendar year, new rules limited purchases to $5,000 in each format, for a total of only $10,000 per calendar year. The interest rate on Series I bonds is reset biannually - in each May and November - and is composed of two parts.

Taxable and Private Activity Municipal bonds are munis which are not totally tax-exempt.

Pre-refunded municipal bonds offer short-term investors the ability to take advantage of the tax advantages of municipal bonds while gaining higher tax equivalent yields and avoiding some of the risks of downgrade or even default that municipal bonds inherently carry.

Open-ended tax-free money market funds are generally composed of pools of municipal bonds and produce income that is exempt from federal tax, and exempt at the state and local tax levels to residents of the issuing state of the underlying bonds.

Municipal Bond ETFs offer another way to invest in the muni market besides purchasing the bonds outright or investing in a municipal bond fund.

Closed-ended tax-free municipal bonds funds are generally composed of pools of municipal bonds and produce income that is exempt from federal tax, and exempt at the state and local tax levels to residents of the issuing state of the underlying bonds.