Corporate bonds can often outperform stocks but have less investment risk. Corporate bond issuers have obligations to pay interest and return an investor's principal at maturity, a much more stringent requirement than stock issuers, which can suspend dividends at any time and have no obligations to repay stock investments. These bond issuer obligations help bonds retain their value even during challenging times. Corporate bonds can fit many risk/reward profiles and are a much-needed complement to stocks in investor portfolios.
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Individual Corporate Bonds vs. Stocks
A key advantage of individual corporate bonds vs. stocks is that they can achieve
strong investment returns and
limit your downside.
While corporate bonds typically do not experience the price volatility of stocks, a
variety of factors can cause corporate
bond prices to move, which can create opportunities to invest in corporate bonds with
strong upside.
Being able to quantify your downside is an important tool for individual bond investors. A key reason why there is less downside to bonds vs. stocks is that a bond is a contract between the issuing company and the bondholder. The company must pay interest on the bonds on specific dates, and it must return the face value of the bond ($1,000 per bond) at the bond's maturity date. Both of these factors stabilize the value of corporate bonds. Stocks don't provide the same level of commitment to shareholders, as a company can suspend dividend payments, and investors have limited recourse other than selling the stock. We saw this during the COVID-19 crisis, as some of the largest companies in the world, including Disney, Royal Dutch Shell, Boeing, and Ford either suspended or reduced their stock dividends.
In addition to having contracted interest and principal payments, corporate bondholders are senior to common and preferred stockholders in a company's capital structure. This is most relevant in the event a company files for Chapter 11. In such cases, bondholders often will not be made whole; however, since they are senior to stockholders, bondholders are guaranteed to have a larger recovery of their principal than stockholders, who are often completely wiped out.
Bond issuers have contractual obligations to bondholders that are much more stringent
than obligations to shareholders.
This starts with the bond issuer's obligation to pay interest on time, typically on a
semi-annual basis. If a company
stops paying its interest to bondholders, the issuer could be deemed to have caused an
'event of default,' which could
enable bondholders to take certain actions to obtain their interest payments and/or a
return of their principal.
Stocks do not have these same obligations, and companies can, at the drop of a hat,
suspend dividend payments to stockholders,
as happened during the COVID-19 crisis in 2020.
Many retirement investors need to know that recurring interest or dividend payments
will continue to be paid, which is
why corporate bonds can be a more compelling investment opportunity for retirement
investors seeking a reliable income
stream. It wasn't too long ago that General Electric had a AAA credit rating and
was one of the world's most valuable
companies. Today, it is a shell of its former self and, in October 2018, GE cut
its quarterly dividend to $0.01 per
share. If this can occur at one of the world's most valuable companies, no
stockholder is immune from dividend cuts
or eliminations.
When investors buy stock of a company, there is no guarantee that the company will repay
the investor anything. The stock could
go up and it could go down depending on the company's performance and market
conditions.
As noted above, the face value of a corporate bond is $1,000. When a bond
matures, the issuing company owes the bondholder
the face value of the bond he purchased. This provides corporate bond investors with a
much higher level of principal security
relative to stockholders.
In addition, bondholders are more senior in a company's capital structure than
stockholders. In the event of a bankruptcy,
stockholders typically get wiped out where bondholders can recover a portion of their
principal depending on the value
of the company and what other debt obligations it has.
Being senior in a company's capital structure and having a contractual obligation to
receive the bond's face value at maturity
provides corporate bondholders a greater level of principal protection than that of
stockholders.
On any given day, people can invest in nearly 9,000 individual corporate bonds,
approximately double the number of publicly
traded stocks. This enables investors to build portfolios that are well suited to
their investment objectives and
risk profiles. For example, a more aggressive investor could favor high-yield
bonds and longer-dated investment grade
bonds. More conservative investors may stick to bonds of higher credit quality
and, to reduce pricing volatility,
limit the time to maturity of investment-grade bonds. We like to say "there's a
corporate bond for everyone."
We expect this enhanced level of investment choice in bonds vs. stocks to continue,
as corporate bond issuance has remained
strong and the number of companies going public through initial public offerings (IPOs)
has waned, falling 67% from 1999
to 2017. The number of publicly traded stocks recently hit a 35-year low, having
decreased 45% from 1996 to 2015.
Another perspective
This article reviews our rationale for owning corporate bonds vs. stocks. For
a perspective on dividend stocks, you may
find the following websites of interest:
Dividend Aristocrats
Dividend Kings
Monthly Dividend Stocks