The Ignorant Investor

Bonds haven't gotten much credit in my house over the years. Who cared about getting interest during the 1990s when stocks were rising in the double digits? I had a bond fund or two in my brokerage account, but I didn't pay any attention to it. It put out 8-9% a year, but I didn't really care. Basically, the bond fund was the plain girl in the nightclub of my portfolio. She got no respect at all.

But recently I've come to regret the way I treated her. She may not be flashy or glamorous like the shares of stock with their dividends and capital gains, but she's nicer than they are. She doesn't tank in value. She doesn't cut her dividend to buy herself a new company jet or invest in some harebrained acquisition or goofy new product that nobody wants. She just sits at home buying up bonds and earning interest, just waiting for me to call her up when the stock market dumps all over me.

"Come here, baby," I told her the other night, "Your sweet interest means so much to me- come here, baby...you know I didn't mean it when I said the stock market was better than you...you're fine, baby, so beautiful . . . paying five, six percent when the stock market has treated me like a dog . . . Mmmm, yeah baby, I love the way you get those cute little capital gains when interest rates fall ... Can I touch them? . . . aaaah, oh yeah- that's so nice....."

Hmm, is it me, or did this just get too weird?