Kenneth Fisher Quotes

For investors who do want to speculate in high-yield bonds, one alternative may be a junk bond mutual fund, which can offer investors the relative safety of diversification.

Bonds despite their ridiculous yields will not easily be threatened with a new bear market.

Public borrowing is costly these days, true, but interest rates on municipal bonds are still considerably lower than those borne by corporate debt.

Bond investors want growth much like equity investors, and to the extent that too much austerity leads to recession or stagnation then credit spreads widen out - even if a country can print its own currency and write its own cheques.

I want to see an end to sovereign risk questions over Australia.

The credit quality of junk bonds varies widely.

One component of the leading economic indicators is the yield curve. Bond investors keep a close eye on this, as it illustrates the spread or difference between long-term interest rates and short-term ones.

Junk bonds prove there's nothing magical in a Aaa bond rating.

Most companies can survive even if their debt ratings are lowered below investment grade, although they will have higher borrowing costs.

Spain is finding it very difficult to finance itself with sovereign debt risk premium so high.

The rating agencies historically actually did a pretty good job rating regular bonds.

If investors avoid the Treasury market, we could be unable to pay off maturing securities, which would mean an immediate default. Market participants generally agree that even a brief default would create potentially catastrophic risks to the financial system, like the meltdown of 2008.

Bond investors are the vampires of the investment world. They love decay, recession - anything that leads to low inflation and the protection of the real value of their loans.

The big question is: When will the term structure of interest rates change? That's the question to be worried about.

Low interest rates are a big opportunity for investment. But the issue is that this money should go to the real economy, not the financial economy.

Defaulting on the nation's debt would be cataclysmic. The U.S. Treasury's Aaa rating is the one constant in the world's financial system. When times are bad anywhere on the planet, global investors flock to Treasury bonds because they know they will get their money back.

Lower interest rates are usually considered good for stocks because they lower the cost of borrowing and make bonds a less attractive alternative investment.

The real danger with debt is what happens if lots of people decide, or are forced, to pay it off at the same time.

The moment a large investor doesn't believe a government will pay back its debt when it says it will, a crisis of confidence could develop. Investors have scant patience for the years of good governance - politically fraught fiscal restructuring, austerity and debt rescheduling - it takes to defuse a sovereign-debt crisis.

Debt, we've learned, is the match that lights the fire of every crisis. Every crisis has its own set of villains - pick your favorite: bankers, regulators, central bankers, politicians, overzealous consumers, credit rating agencies - but all require one similar ingredient to create a true crisis: too much leverage.

In normal times, investors should pay more attention to the credit markets because it's the energy by which everything is driven. It's the oil in the engine.

It is very difficult to predict when a bond crisis could happen.

I have never been a fan of bond funds. Unlike a direct investment in an individual bond that you can hold to maturity and be assured you will get your principal back (assuming no default), a fund has no finite maturity date and most funds are actively traded.

Despite the deep reforms we are making, traders and speculators have forced interest rates on Greek bonds to record highs.

Rising interest rates are considered bad for stocks because they raise the cost of doing business and depress corporate earnings and because higher yields make bonds relatively more attractive than stocks to investors.