High-yield bonds are risky because they have lower credit quality and there are several events that could cause the price to decrease. They are not insured by the Federal Government.
The different types of bonds includes Treasury bonds which are released by US government. Agency bonds which are issued by organizations registered or affiliated with US Federal government, municipal bonds which are issued by counties or cities have medium to low yield, Corporate bonds which are issued by companies, have high yields, high yield bonds which are issued by corporations.
Price and yield are determined at auction.
To find the federal tax rate at which the buyer would be indifferent between Muni bonds(which are tax free) and Corporate bonds(which fall under your tax bracket tax rate) you follow this simple formula: Corporate Bond Yield=(Municipal bond Yield)/(1- Federal tax rate) In this case you would solve for the Federal Tax Rate and get an answer of .25 or 25% http://luhman.org/Nts/Bond/140_Municipals.html
A junk bond is any bond with a BB or below rating. Also called high-yield bonds, they can become this way following one of two paths. In the days before Michael Milken, investment-grade bonds became junk because of various downturns in a company's fortune. Milken's great innovation, the one that made him so rich he could pay a billion dollars in fines to the federal government and still be rich, was creating bonds that started out life as high-yield paper.
The issuer will call the bonds and issue new bonds to the maturity date.
Yes, high yield investments which are also called junk bonds, are quite risky and that is why they pay higher yields. Safer investments will have lower yields, and include AAA and AA rated corporate bonds, government bonds, as well as Certificates of Deposit (CDs) among others.
Someone that is looking for information on high yield municipal bonds, can do so by researching with websites such as About, Wikipedia, as well as Learn Bonds.
The yield to maturity represents the promised yield on a bond
* yield to worst (to maturity or to call date) * current yield * coupon yield
The best benefits of high yield bonds are they are issued by low credit organizations, they are a leading agency, and they work to protect your debt .
The major risk with high yield bonds is losing all of your money you invest. These type of bonds have a very low rating much lower that the investment grade.
When the yield of a bond exceeds it coupon rate, the price will be below 'par' which is usually $100.