Why invest in bonds when there are so many other options? Essay

Although this investment class can be considered the most conservative of the three, the low yield of government bonds in the past 10 years does not lend a comparative metric against many other investment opportunities (Jacobs, 2012). The fixed rate of these instruments allows for a guaranteed return, but should only be utilized at a point in an investing cycle when risk is higher than potential income growth. The 25% allocation that is invested in this class is positioned to provide a long term guaranteed investment, with the possible that these lower rates will not rise significantly in the next few years.

a) Given that the increase in unemployment means a decrease in real GDP, and that consumer spending and investment spending reductions mean a fall in aggregate demand, the economy is in recession. This is due to a fall in aggregate demand, and the fall in investment may lead to higher costs of production in the future.

The weak economic growth in Asia ad in Europe has helped in benefiting Canada and the US. Asia and Europe had also faced deflationary pressures which were caused by the changes in the rates of interest rates in the economy. The risk of the inflationary pressure in the US led to the increasing concern of the federal reserves. The Canadian bonds have been trading at a considerably lower yield as compared to the US bonds in the market. The situation was supposed to be maintained if the Canadian dollars in the economy appreciated relatively to those of the US dollars in the economy. The outlook for the bonds in the economy looked to be very attractive an aspect which was attributed to the changes in

The news informs everyone on a daily basis that the United States has the largest economy and that it is looking to be in great shape since four years ago. To some Americans it seems otherwise. The unemployment rate in 2007 was 4.6% compared to unemployment rate in 2012 at 7.5%. The U.S inflation rate ended in October 2012 after twelve months was 2.16% which is 0.11% higher than the one in September. The U.S inflation forecast consists of apparel, education and

Consumer income can be defined as the income that is left over after taxes, and living expenses are met. This money can also be classified as disposable income, and companies are

The consumer confidence index measures the level of optimism regarding the prospect of economic growth. These data are gathered via surveys that focus on people’s attitude towards economy by asking them to make short and long term forecasts. Although consumers’ overviews of the economy are based on past occurrences, the expectations are generally reflective of future expenditure behaviour, which is a large component of real GDP. CCI is subjective because people’s economic outlooks are generally based on variables that are partially reflective and closely related to themselves such as unemployment rate and petrol prices. Consumers’ expectations are based on the changes in these factors and they will impact upon future household consumption.

What is the state of the US economy? Has a cloud fallen on the US and harder economic times coming? Is continued decline require a cautious posture? “It's hard to decipher the state of the economy from headlines.” Although the economy is not equal to pre-recession times which was more than six years ago, the “jobs lost to the Great Recession have been replaced. Unemployment is down. The stock market has generally prospered.” What role does consumer

primarily concerns about the health of the economy where the business operates. Which can be measured by looking at the GDP which is the value of all final goods and services produced within the country in a specific period of time, unemployment rate calculated by taking the number of people that are unemployed. Consumers confident to spend money, as well as the interest rate rising and inflation (which is an increase in the prices of goods and services). The economic factors can affect the production as businesses should make a decision to reduce or increase the production due to the economic environment. capital spending and labour force should be considered in case of recession as a business may cut their investments and expansion plans,

“With the jobs report behind and barring the truly unforeseen, the Federal Reserve has a green light to raise interest rates by 25 basis points at the March meeting”. As the article gives evidence in raising the interest rate with respect to the rising employing rate, we can interpret a substantial difference in the expenditure trends for households. The shift in interest rate subsequently raises the prices of goods and services. As there are more people with jobs, it is more likely to have companies sell their products. More disposable income means greater potential in consumer expenditure. Households who have been buying the minimum needs will start to consume to satisfy wants and the luxury

If production is down and revenue are down then there has to be cuts somewhere in order to keep a business going. If not as many people are buying goods there may be a decrease in a need for customer service. If there is less of a need for customer service than a few representatives may lose there job. Since there are more and more people without a job then less and less people can afford much. If contractionary policy is oversaught then there may be a huge amount of people trying to register for unemployment, drop out of school because they cannot afford it, and even becoming homeless. These all take away from the American economy. Even if the economy ends going back up to the preferable amount of inflation, people are still very weary about their money. This is why it is very important to not over or under see the tightness of contractionary policy that we implement.

Monetary policy effects the GDP inflation. “Between 1996 and 2000, real GDP in the United States expanded briskly and the price level rose only slowly. The economy experienced neither significant unemployment nor inflation. Some observes felt that the United States had entered a “new ear” in which business cycle was dead. But that wishful thinking came to an end in March 2001, when the economy entered its ninth recession since 1950. Since 1970, real GDP has declined in the United States in five periods: 1973-1975, 1980, 1981-1982, 1990-1991 and

Economists use the retail sales data in their models to make predictions on a wide variety of economic issues. Again, because retails sales accounts for such a large proportion of GDP, it is used along with other factors as a way to estimate the direction of the quarterly and annual GDP numbers. Used in conjunction with data such as the consumer price index, it is also very relevant for inflation forecasts as the data can offer glimpses into the affects of rising or falling prices. This in turn is closely tied to predictions for the direction of future interest rates as potential additional government action. Finally the retail sales data can be used to estimate

A bond is debt to whoever sells the bond to an inventor. If you buy an IBM bond, you are loaning money ($1000) to IBM instead of a bank loaning money to them. Just like a bank, you are going to charge IBM interest on your money, as well as a return of principle when the loan is due (ten years later). The company does not go to the bank to borrow the money, because the bank will rate the company as a high risk company. Hence, banks are really tight with their money. High yields bond investment relies on an credit analysis in that it concentrates on issuer fundamentals, and a "bottom-up" process. It focuses more on "downside risk default and the unique characteristics of the issuer. In a portfolio of high yield bonds,

First time this phenomenon was presented by the economists Rajnish Mehra and Edward Prescott in 1985. They discovered that the return from US equity investments in comparison to the return from a risk free government securities had been much far above during the twentieth century to be interpreted by the traditional economic theories (Siegel and Thaler, 1997).

Prior to the intensification of the financial crisis in October 2008, covered bonds were a key source of funding for euro area banks. The market had grown to over €2.4 trillion by the end of 2008, compared with about €1.5 trillion in 2003 (ECBC, 2009). The lack of credit risk transfer with covered bonds is an important distinction with this asset class compared with, for example, asset-backed securities (ABS) and other securities that were subject to securitization. This may well explain the resilience of the covered bond market at the initial stage of the crisis in August 2007. (Biswas, 2010) Investors’ affinity for covered bonds can be explained by their relative safety compared with any non-securitized asset class. In relation to covered bonds, a pool of collateral backs the credit risk of the issuer, which is usually of high quality. Despite this, however, the covered bond market was not totally immune to the effects of the crisis. Up to the intensification of the crisis following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid-September 2008, it was clear that the covered bond market had outperformed other wholesale funding instruments. The widening of spreads was much less substantial for covered bonds than other ABS and unsecured debt. (Biswas, 2010) Graph 1 backs up this argument that the widening of spreads was less significant for covered bonds as