Investments in high - yield
bonds offer different rewards and risks
than investing in
investment -
grade securities, including higher
volatility, greater credit risk, and the more speculative nature of the issuer.
Our research on the Fundamental Index ® concept, as applied to
bonds, underscores the widely held view in the
bond community that we should not choose to own more of any security just because there's more of it available to us.10 Figure 9 plots four different Fundamental Index portfolios (weighted on sales, profits, assets and dividends) in
investment -
grade bonds (green), high - yield
bonds (blue) and emerging markets sovereign debt (yellow).11 Most of these have lower
volatility and higher return
than the cap - weighted benchmark (marked with a red dot).