Similarly, not long ago many bond market gurus were predicting the end of high bond prices.
Monthly dividend paying stocks can be an appropriate complement to other monthly-paying securities like closed-end bond funds.
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In spite of this, municipal bond closed-end funds are attractive.
But in most cases, I think I have a better chance at limiting risk (and ideally boosting returns) by sticking with open-end bond funds like DoubleLine Core Fixed Income (DLFNX), DoubleLine Total Return (DLTNX), Thompson Bond (THOPX), PIMCO Income (PONDX), and PIMCO Foreign Bond US Hedged (PFODX).
The four iShares index funds (see table below), issued by the Global Investors unit of Barclays (nyse: BCS - news - people ), sport a rock-bottom expense ratio of 0.15 versus open-end bond fund averages of around 1.00 and the 0.20 charged by low-cost leader Vanguard.
So what should bond investors, especially retirees, be on the look out for as far as an end to the bond market ride?
Speaking on state-run NET television, Yannis Stournaras said Greece could be in a position to return to the international bond markets at the end of 2014.
The end of the bond party is, in fact, just one of several reasons for the diversification.
Worse, two little-noticed but important bits of the market have imploded this month, and there are fears for a third, known as closed-end municipal-bond funds.
Those minutes reveal that several FOMC committee members think that with the economic recovery showing increasing strength, the Fed will need to halt the bond purchases well before the end of 2013.
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Although the Fed is trying to limit the surprise of an end to its bond-buying program, there is a more likely event that officials will have to increase it to support a weakening economy, Nichols added.
By tuning the laser very precisely to the frequency of one particular sort of bond (such as that with a heavy carbon atom at one end), a molecule containing that bond can be shaken up.
However, bond funds carry annual expenses, upfront or back-end commission charges and, if interest rates rise, bond fund holders can lose principal.
The most recent FOMC minutes had shown some Fed officials were in favor of ending the bond-buying program at year end.
In fact, today this is one of the key concerns whereby loan yields may end up lower than bond yields or even negative because most loans can be repaid at par or renegotiated anytime.
While bank lending remained an important source of financing, companies of all sizes and all credit ratings had the option of accessing the bond markets and, by the end of the 1980s through the issuance of high yield securities, a different universe of creditors.
The costumes are remarkable, but at the end of the day Bond is a man of action -- which is why the exhibition's grand finale culminates in the Ice Palace from "Die Another Day, " where visitors are surrounded with footage of 007's many chase scenes in the snow.
It could be an issue, however, for a stock, bond, ETF, or closed-end fund that is not frequently traded.
The end of national government-bond markets may hurt just as much.
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In essence, China has not financed any new bond issuances by the United States since the end of 2010.
My policy on bond investing is to only use open-end no load Institutional class mutual funds to invest in bonds.
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In the end, negotiations settled on a bond exchange that will cut the face value of Greece's debt to private creditors by half.
It will also mark the end to the boom in the bond markets which, says Urquhart Stewart, "is a matter now of when rather than if".
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Some Federal Reserve officials have also been calling for an early end to the central bank's bond-buying program.
Investors were jarred by the potential for an earlier-than-expected end to the Fed's experimental bond-buying programs, known as quantitative easing.
Congressman Ron Paul has seized on the absurdity of the bond-issuing ritual with his recent proposal to end-run the debt ceiling.
Essentially, a large opportunity remains in equities as the thirty year bond bull market appears to be coming to an end.
So we had people nearing retirement with target-dated accounts that held heavy bond portfolios and they ended up on the losing end.
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