You can choose to buy individual bonds directly, but I recommend buying them through bond index funds or ETFs because it’s much easier. Though there has been a debate in the past about whether there is a material difference in performance between individual bonds and bond funds, there isn’t. Cliff Asness, founder of AQR Capital Management, thoroughly debunked this notion in the Financial Analysts Journal in 2014.69 Regardless of how you buy your bonds, they can play an important role in your portfolio beyond providing growth. As the old saying goes: “We buy stocks so we can eat well, but we
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