Ok, let's talk to the long term investors for a minute. If you are one who only focuses on long term investing then there are tons of rules I'm sure you've heard of. One of those rules that has been taught for what feels like forever is that you should have your age in bonds. This is just a simple way of telling the average investor that whatever age they are is the percentage of bonds they should have in their portfolio. 30 years old, 30% bonds. The rule is meant to help investors realize they should be taking less risk into their retirement years.
Today this rule makes no sense at all. We are living in a period of low yields and people are working longer than ever. Part of the reason they may be working so long is that when they were 40 they were told to have 40% in bonds that saw no growth at all.
Now don't get me wrong, bonds are a necessary evil in ones long term holdings. The idea is that bonds are considered more stable in the long run and less risky than stocks. So you can go for growth with some percentage of your portfolio and leave the rest to bonds and cash. The problem with this rule is that many people have too much in bonds and are not getting the growth they need.
Enter the ETF: Exchange traded funds have come a long way and are now quite popular in the bond space. Currently, investors have the option of utilizing ETF's as an alternative to buying bonds. They get the tradability of stocks with the performance of the bond market. One can spread out over short terms, long terms, corporate, even some municipal.
However you choose to add bonds to your portfolio, just be sure you are focused on your goals, not what the industry tells you. Allocate too much to bonds and your portfolio could be missing out.