In other words, it doesn't look like I can
buy junk bonds through Schwab.
In November of 2008 through March of 2009, it made a lot of sense to
buy junk bonds, and I did so for my church building fund.
Some large financial institutions, whether for regulatory or business reasons, can't
buy junk bonds.
@Anton, I have
bought junk bonds in the past.
Would
you buy a junk bond or a high yield bond?
If you had said this 6 - 10 months ago, when I recommended
buying junk bonds, I would be impressed.
In the current interest rate environment, that means I'm
buying some junk bonds, no bonds with high credit ratings, and mostly bonds just above the traditional junk rating of Baa for Moody's.
Not exact matches
When people see banks browbeating the
bond rating agencies and accounting firms to whitewash the quality of what they're pawning off on their customers, when they see bank lobbyists getting Washington to block state prosecutions of financial fraud so as to clear the way for more predatory lending and false packaging of the
junk securities they're selling and to win the right not to reveal their true financial position, there's a good reason not to
buy what's in these black boxes.
But the real emergency affects mainly debtors — mortgage debtors with negative equity, companies loaded down with
junk bonds (many of them taken to
buy back corporate stock and increase dividend payouts to increase the price at which managers can cash out).
Stocks are being retired by corporate raiders in exchange for high - interest («
junk»)
bonds, and by corporations using their earnings to
buy their own stocks rather than to make new direct investments.
When I was a
junk bond trader in the 1990s» we referred to anyone who
bought a
bond yielding over 12 % as «a yield hog.»
On the other end of the scale, Schwab will only let you search investment grade
bonds online (you must call the
bond desk to trade
junk), will only let you
buy online (you must call to sell), and does not allow limit orders at all.
Although there have been many ups and downs in this extended rate cycle,
junk bonds and the portfolio managers who
buy and sell them have never experienced a rise from these yield levels before.
When the Fed decided to terminate the
junk bond business to prevent the real estate market from blowing up, all of our customers in North America, and Europe, suddenly stopped
buying at the same time.
--
Junk -
bond investors are passing up traditional protections in their race to
buy new debt, and some participants worry the diminished safeguards are a sign of an overheated market.
You say the coupon is 4 % or so which I think is a fair statement, but surely the yield to maturity must be much lower, 1.5 - 2 % assuming you aren't
buying 30 + year
bonds or
junk paper?
They trade as if there is no conversion option, and some clever
junk bond managers
buy them, knowing that if a few of them have stocks that rally significantly, they will make enough extra money to aid their performance.
· «
Junk» ETFs: Tread Lightly http://t.co/lXftKjwB Check the Price vs the NAV before you
buy; also, if w / ds start, index
bonds will get hit Mar 19, 2012
To a lesser extent, it has also gone into high - yield mutual funds that
buy bonds rated below investment grade, known as
junk bonds to those who are dubious of them.»
I'm a big fan of
junk bonds, but I'd probably get a little friskier and
buy a levered
junk bond closed end fund.
As to
junk bonds, I'd say that an attentive investor * will probably have a handful of opportunities during his / her lifetime to
buy them at very advantageous prices (beginning of 09, for example).
At a time like this, I reissue my call to sell stocks and
buy corporate
bonds, even
junk bonds.
I realize that the idea of
junk bond indexing is to
buy into notes that pay high yields, but there's risk and then there's RISK.
Never in my life would I have considered
buying a CCC
junk bond at 110 to yield 7 % (quick ratings guide: BBB = investment grade, BB = fine company, B = either a fine or a sketchy company the ratings agencies have no clue which, CCC = this will default just give it a few years, D = this defaulted like we said when we rated it BB uhhhh we're not good at this).
Another easy prediction to make is that
junk bonds and non-bond income vehicles will be a large contributor to the shortfall in asset return in the next bear market, because a decent number of people are
buying them as if they are magic.
Also, on the fixed income side, I've been selling HY [DM: High Yield, aka «
Junk»]
bonds, shortening duration, and
buying floating rate bank loans.
In addition to small cap and big cap value funds I also lightened up on GM & GMAC
junk bonds and added to my investment grade
bonds by
buying AAA and AA exchange traded debt issues that were mainly utilities and financial companies.
It is not that a
junk bond is trash; just that the rating agencies are unable to give the kind of rating that can be safely
bought by large institutional investors such as pension funds, which have to observe restrictions on the kinds of investments they can make.
When you have many different parties going into the markets seeking income, not caring where they get it from, and a shock hits one part of the market, the effect flows to other areas If all of a sudden yields on
junk bonds look cheaper, the yield trade - offs of
buying junk and selling dividend paying common stocks looks attractive.
Stone Canyon Industries, a firm backed by the wealth of former
junk bond legend Michael Milken, paid $ 2.4 billion when it
bought packaging company BWAY Corp..