Concept
A bond fund or debt fund is a fund that invests in bonds, or other debt securities. Bond funds can be contrasted with stock funds and money funds. Bond funds typically pay periodic dividends that include interest payments on the fund's underlying securities plus periodic realized capital appreciation. Bond funds typically pay higher dividends than CDs and money market accounts. Most bond funds pay out dividends more frequently than individual bonds. Bond Funds can be classified by their primary underlying assets: Government: Government bonds are considered safest, since a government can always "print more money" to pay its debt. In the United States, these are United States Treasury securities or Treasurys. Due to the safety, the yields are typically low. Agency: In the United States, these are bonds issued by government agencies such as the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac), and Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). Municipal: Bonds issued by state and local governments and agencies are subject to certain tax preferences and are typically exempt from federal taxes. In some cases, these bonds are even exempt from state or local taxes. Corporate: Bonds are issued by corporations. All corporate bonds are guaranteed by the borrowing (issuing) company, and the risk depends on the company's ability to pay the loan at maturity. Some bond funds specialize in high-yield securities (junk bonds), which are corporate bonds carrying a higher risk, due to the potential inability of the issuer to repay the bond. Bond funds specializing in junk bonds – also known as "below investment-grade bonds" – pay higher dividends than other bond funds, with the dividend return correlating approximately with the risk. Bond funds may also be classified by factors such as type of yield (high income) or term (short, medium, long) or some other specialty such as zero-coupon bonds, international bonds, multisector bonds or convertible bonds.