The party's over for corporate bonds

The London Stock Exchange has created a retail platform designed to make trading corporate bonds as easy as trading listed shares. And it's a great idea in principle. The trouble is, now's not the time to buy corporate bonds. Tim Bennett explains why.

Better late than never. Having watched retail investors pile into corporate bonds 2009's most popular investment sector, according to the Investment Management Association the London Stock Exchange has joined the party. It has created a retail platform designed to make trading corporate bonds as easy as trading listed shares. And it's a great idea in principle. The trouble is, now's not the time to buy corporate bonds. Here's why.

Corporate bond basics

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.