Bonds, yields, and cash: build the defensive side deliberately.
Understand bond cash flows, price and yield, duration, credit risk, Treasuries, corporate and municipal bonds, money market funds, CDs, and the role of cash.
Know what drives the yield before reaching for it.
Topics in this course
Learn fixed income from the cash-flow contract outward: price, yield, duration, credit, maturity, bond structure, cash management, and implementation. Use the course to match instruments to specific portfolio jobs.
Bond mechanics: price, yield, duration, credit, and maturity
Understand how bond cash flows, price, yield, duration, maturity, credit quality, and reinvestment interact before comparing fixed-income investments.
- Bond basics
- Bond anatomy: know what the contract promises
- Bond quotation: clean price, dirty price, and accrued interest
- Price and yield move in opposite directions
- + 6 more sections
Bond types and structures: know what can change the payoff
Compare government, corporate, municipal, agency, callable, floating-rate, inflation-linked, and other bonds by issuer risk, cash flows, seniority, optionality, and tax context.
- Major fixed-income categories
- Treasury securities can be bought at auction or in the secondary market
- Municipal bonds require both tax and credit analysis
- Mortgage-backed bonds can shorten when rates fall and lengthen when rates rise
- + 2 more sections
Cash and fixed-income implementation: match liquidity to the job
Use cash, money market instruments, CDs, Treasury securities, bonds, and ladders according to liquidity needs, maturity, reinvestment risk, credit risk, and execution costs.
- Cash management vehicles are not interchangeable
- Bank deposits, brokered CDs, Treasury bills, and money market funds are different instruments
- A fixed-income purchase checklist
- Buying an individual bond requires reading the quote and the contract together
- + 4 more sections
Income is only one part of the bond decision.
Compare yield with maturity, duration, credit quality, call features, liquidity, and reinvestment risk. A higher quoted yield can reflect a different risk profile rather than a better outcome.
Read the guides in order for a complete path.
All 9 guides in this category are listed here in the recommended learning order. You can still open any guide directly from the navigation or search.