What are Junk Bonds?

Friday 16 May 2008 @ 8:02 am

You have probably heard of bonds and have at one time or another considered restructuring your personal finance by including bond investment. There are, however, several kinds of bonds. One of these kinds includes the junk bonds.

Introduction to Junk Bonds

When you speak of junk bonds, you generally refer to bonds that are high-yield. These are the bonds that graded below the general investment rating. The risk is significantly higher when you invest in junk bonds. You may placed your personal finance state is dire jeopardy with these high risk investment. If you are confident, however, that you can take on these types of bonds, then junk bond investment may not be such a bad thing. Experienced investors have always been attracted to junk bonds because despite its high risk, the return is equally high as well.

The Risks in Junk Bonds

Generally, there are two kinds of financial risks in junk bonds. When you invest in these bonds, you place your money in interest rate risk and you also place yourself at credit risk. The value of the bonds generally changes with its interest rate in the market. This places your investment vulnerable to market changes. Now, since bonds are actually loans, when you place your investment in junk bonds, you put yourself at a higher risk that you will not get paid for your loan.

Despite these risks, junk bonds remain in the market. However, because of these risks, they do not sell as well as they could in the market. It is therefore important that you take extreme care when investing in junk Bonds. You must be sure you can do without the money involved in the investment and are patient enough for the bond to be paid up or sold. Get as much information as you can before deciding.




What is Compounded Interest?

Wednesday 30 April 2008 @ 7:40 am

Compound interest – everybody wants to know about it. The concept is quite simple really and anyone wanting to get control of their personal finances should understand it. When you compound the interest, what you do is you add back the accumulated interest to the principal. This effectively turns the earned interest into a principal because you then start earning interest from your interest. This results in compounded interest.

Illustrating the Concept

To give you a better idea of how it works, here is an example. For instance, you have $10,000 saved as a high-yield investment. Under traditional method of earning interest, if you are to earn 4% on that savings, you get $400 in one year from your $10,000. In ten years time, you’d earn $4,000 from your savings.

Now, if you apply the interest as a compound daily interest, you get to earn $8.08 daily. This figure would of course vary depending on whether you add back the interest earned to the principal or not. In ten years time, you’d earn $4,917.92. You get an additional $917 with compounded interest rate.

With compound interest, you get to earn money while you without having to put more money into the investment! If you know how to take advantage of this interest, you are likely to end up spending your earnings on your interest while your principal continues to earn money.

Harnessing the Benefits of Compounded Interest Rates

Generally, regular consumers or the public cannot take advantage of compound interest rates as it is not widely offered. Usually, it is only the large firms that benefit from this tool. The public usually can earn money from compound interest when they invest in mutual funds or stocks. Therefore, in order to benefit from this type of interest, you should make the right investment in those instruments that are offering compound interest. Your personal finance will greatly improve.








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