Personal Investments • Finding good individual bonds

I have held bond funds as part of my portfolio for many years now. I am now getting closer to really needing the income that bonds can generate.

My mutual fund bond holdings got clobbered along with everything else in the 2022-2024 market; and I've received some advice (and read in various places) suggesting that holding some individual bonds will provide a more predictable income stream.

I'm not averse to holding individual bonds, and I could certainly buy Treasuries easily enough. Where it gets tricky is moving beyond Treasuries to corporates. I've tried searching for new issue corporate bonds, and virtually everything is callable; so (as I see it) as soon as the Fed starts cutting rates, those bonds will get called. This doesn't jibe with the idea of a predictable income stream, since the bonds go >poof< and the income (upon reinvestment) changes.

So I wonder: How do others do it? I'm sure there are stalwart Bogleheads who leave it to the fund managers; but for those who buy individual bonds, what do you do? Do you buy on the secondary market? Do you accept the call risk? Something else?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Statistics: Posted by SerenityGarden — Sat Aug 17, 2024 8:22 am — Replies 0 — Views 10

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