For corporate bonds, he said, you can still get rates close to 8 percent for A-rated investment bonds and that's an attractive number. |
I think the market is expecting a slight increase and so if they don't do anything, I think you'll see a sell-off. If it's increased more than expected, you might get a little pick-up -- but it's keeping the market a little on edge. |
Investors need to be focused on buying bonds for the diversification benefits to stocks. If you are worried about a stock market correction, you should have some bonds for the steady income they provide. It's true that 30-year Treasuries are coming down, because of supply and demand concerns, but there are plenty of alternatives for individual investors. |
It appears that businesses are buying equipment they might have put off from buying the last several years. |
People are putting corporate bonds in their inventories. It's a combination of [corporate bond] supply and very thin trading. |
The market was hoping for more of an increase [in oil production]. The price isn't going to go down dramatically anytime soon and that's a negative as far as bonds are concerned. |
There is a lot of uncertainty out there and bonds aren't a bad place to be. We're going to see continuation of the schizophrenic mood out there -- any rumor is going to really spook the market. |
There's certainly a higher chance that they will go half a percentage point this time. And a quarter-percentage point is a done deal. |
There's really nothing major out there to worry about. There's a lot of supply, a lot of corporate bonds that are in the pipeline that the market is also looking at. |
Wages have been outpacing inflation. However, we're also seeing more layoffs this year than we did last year, so there is a lot of competition out there. |
Whenever you can get a muni-bond at or over 6 percent, that's a very attractive rate. |