Bond funds, also known as bond funds, refer to funds that specialize in investing in bonds. By concentrating the funds of many investors, we can make portfolio investment in bonds and seek relatively stable returns.
Bonds are creditor's rights and debt certificates issued to investors when the government, financial institutions, industrial and commercial enterprises and other institutions directly borrow money from the society to raise funds, and promise to pay interest at a certain interest rate and repay the principal according to the agreed conditions.
According to the classification standard of China Securities Regulatory Commission, bond funds refer to funds with more than 80% of fund assets invested in bonds. Bond funds can also put a small amount of money into the stock market. In addition, investing in convertible bonds and issuing new shares are also important channels for bond funds to obtain income.
In China, bond funds mainly invest in government bonds, financial bonds and corporate bonds. Usually, bonds provide investors with a fixed return and repay the principal at maturity, and the risk is lower than that of stocks. Therefore, compared with stock funds, bond funds have the characteristics of stable income and low risk.
Influencing factors:
The two main factors affecting the performance of bond funds are interest rate risk, that is, the sensitivity of the bonds invested to interest rate changes (also known as duration) and credit risk. When choosing a bond fund, we must understand its interest rate sensitivity and credit quality. On this basis, we can understand how high the risk of the fund is and whether it meets your investment needs.
Interest rate sensitivity:
The rise and fall of bond prices is inversely proportional to the rise and fall of interest rates. When interest rates rise, bond prices fall. It is necessary to know the change of bond price, so as to know how sensitive the net asset value of bond funds is to the change of interest rate, and the duration can be used as an indicator to measure it. The maturity of a bond depends on three factors: the maturity date, the cash flow of principal and interest expenses, and the yield to maturity. Duration is calculated in years, but it is different from the term of bonds. With this indicator, you can know how much the fund under investigation has earned or lost because of the change of interest rate.
The longer the duration, the more sensitive the net asset value of bond funds is to the change of interest. If the duration of the bond fund is 5 years, if the interest rate drops 1 percentage point, the net asset value of the fund will increase by about 5 percentage points; Conversely, if the interest rate rises by 1 percentage point, the net asset value of the fund will lose 5 percentage points. For another example, there are two bond funds with a duration of 4 years and 2 years respectively, and the net asset value of the former fluctuates about twice as much as that of the latter.