Bond Brokers

Bonds are a great way to diversify your portfolio, but how do you know which bond is likely to earn you money and which ones are likely to end up worthless? To invest in bond mutual funds and individual bond securities, you can find a good bond broker that can offer you many choices. Many of the existing discount brokers out there also offer bond trading and investing services, so in order to achieve diversification, you may only need to purchase bonds from the brokerage you're already using. Here are a few top brokers that support bond trading and investing.

1

TradeKing

open account
  • Has a comprehensive bond screener that offers nine separate search criteria over ten different bond types, offering investors the opportunity to see all bonds that meet their individualized requirements.
  • Offers low flat rate bond trading, regardless of your account balance or the number of trades you perform each month, including online, touch tone and broker assisted trades.
  • Access to educational articles and state of the art investment tools, including interactive charts and tax manager tools designed to help you make informed trading decisions.
  • Extra Hours Trading allows you to enter pre-market orders as early as 8:00 am ET and as late as 9:30 am ET, and post-market orders from 4:00 pm ET until 5:0pm ET, making bond trading convenient.
  • Diversify your portfolio with fixed income securities quickly, easily, and inexpensively with a company rated number 1 in customer service by SmartMoney.
Stock Trades Options Base Options Contract Minimum Deposit Broker Assisted Fund Trades
$4.95 $4.95 $0.65 $0.00 $4.95 $14.95 (no load)
2

Scottrade

open account
    One of the only discount investment brokers that has physical locations: 483 total locations designed to assist you with your bond investments.
  • Get one account access to all of your investments, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds and more.
  • Access to free bond screeners that allow you to sort through the bond offerings of over 150 bond dealers as Scottrade does not hold any bonds nor promotes any particular bond or company.
  • Offers multiple ways to trade, including online, touch tone, and broker assisted transactions for competitively low rates.
  • Access to a wealth of educational bond articles as well as interactive tools geared towards helping you make better investment decisions.
Stock Trades Options Base Options Contract Minimum Deposit Broker Assisted Fund Trades
$7.00 $7.00 $1.25 $500.00 $27.00 $0.00 - $17.00
3

E*Trade

open account
  • Get access to over 30,000 bonds that are available for trading. E*Trade has one of the largest bond and fixed income securities online catalogs anywhere.
  • E*Trade offers a multitude of free tools, including free bond screeners that allow you to customize your search based on the criteria you choose as well as a fixed income portfolio analyzer.
  • Access to unparalleled, in-depth research and a bond-ladder builder designed to help you reach your fixed income portfolio goals.
  • Access to live investment professionals who can take your bond investing strategy to a whole new level.
  • Low cost, flat rate bond trading allows investors of all backgrounds to get started with bond investing.
Stock Trades Options Base Options Contract Minimum Deposit Broker Assisted Fund Trades
$7.99 - $9.99 $7.99 - $9.99 $0.75 $500.00 $45.00 $0.00 - $19.99

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Tips To Invest In Bonds

When it comes to investing, you may place bonds at the lower end of your priority list, given its lower risk and lower reward profile. But it makes sense to add a low risk investment to an otherwise aggressive portfolio for purposes of diversification. Remember that stocks and other highly volatile investments stand to make larger profits, hence the idea that greater risks beget greater gains. However, statistics are now being published that claim that bonds have traditionally outperformed stocks and not just in the short term. Depending on the length of time you decide to measure performance, you may find that bonds have outperformed the S&P 500. At any rate, bonds have a proper place in your portfolio as part of your diversification strategy and your asset allocation.

So, how do you get started with investing in bonds?

For proper portfolio diversification, you need to have a mix of investments such as stocks, bonds, precious metals and other asset classes. You may also want these assets to be in both tax-advantaged and regular accounts. Why? Because various investments don't move in lock step at all times. Many of them are not well-correlated, which simply means that their rates of return vary, along with their periods of strength and weakness. Since each investment vehicle is different, different economic conditions will affect them differently. This means that while one investment may be doing poorly, odds are that the other asset classes will be holding up, keeping your money safe.

With that in mind, here are a few tips you can follow when investing in bonds.

  1. Understand how interest rates affect your bond investment. Successful investors know that interest rates have an effect on the bond market. Rising interest rates equate to weaker bond prices. But if you plan to hold on to a bond till its maturity, then you won't need to worry about the value of your bond; you'll still receive the rates earned from your bond by the time of its maturity.
  2. Know which bonds to invest in. Know the differences between corporate bonds, municipal bonds and emerging markets debt. Buying investment-grade corporate bonds (and particularly, a bond mutual fund) is a reasonable approach to owning bonds because they may offer a good risk/reward balance compared to other bond instruments. Municipal bonds help investors fight off impending income tax increases because the interest income is tax free on these bonds. Government bonds from emerging countries may be something to consider as they offer diversification, which is a good thing given that some emerging countries have been less impacted by the current financial crisis.
  3. Take a business approach to bond investing. In the world according to Warren Buffet, you should take the same approach to bond investing as you do to stock investing. This means that you should invest in quality businesses with sound management principles at a good value. If you'd rather leave the selections to experts, then consider some low cost bond funds for your portfolio.

Since bond investing isn’t nearly as risky as stock investing, bond investors have a little more wiggle room when it comes to making mistakes. Unless you invest in a company on the brink of bankruptcy, odds are that you won’t lose your entire investment before you can get out. But, it makes sense to do your homework and understand that a bond investment is a long term investment, meaning that it will take anywhere from 3 to 10 years or more to realize your profits. In the words of Buffett, investing is simple, but not easy. You will need to know:

  • How stable is the company behind the bond
  • The rate of return for the bond
  • How likely your investment could default
  • How your investment compares to other bonds in the market

If you have these main principles down pat, you will enjoy much greater success as a bond investor.