Bond Yields Quotes

But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them." Viola: "Thy reason, man?" Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.

Somehow I should have been able to say how strong and resilient you were, what a patient and abiding and bonding force, the softness that proved in the long run stronger than what it seemed to yield to...You are at once a lasting presence and an unhealed wound.

it's good to be afraid. You need to be afraid even when there's no need, it keeps you alert. The bond with known spaces, with secure affections, yielded to curiosity about what might happen. Lies, lies, adults forbid them and yet they tell so many.

Potent Quotes “Whatever you do, or eat, or give, or offer in adoration, let it be an offering to me; and whatever you suffer, suffer it for me. Thus you shall be free from the bonds of Karma which yield fruits that are evil and good; and with your soul one in renunciation you shall be free and come to me.”—Bhagavad Gita

...I realized that my father, of all these men, was the most obstinate, helplessly bonded to his better instincts and their excessive demands. I only then understood that he had quit his job not merely because he was fearful of what awaited us down the line should we agree like the others to be relocated, but because, for better or worse, when he was bullied by superior forces that he deemed corrupt it was his nature not to yield--in this instance, to resist either running away to Canada, as my mother urged our doing, or bowing to a government directive that was patently unjust. There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty And Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.

{Colonel Carr's testimony of Colonel Robert Ingersoll at his funeral} He was the boldest, most aggressive, courageous, virile, and the kindest and gentlest and most considerate and loving man I ever knew. His was a nature that yielded to no obstacles, that could not be moved nor turned aside by the allurements of place or position, the menaces of power, the favors of the opulent, or the enticing influences of public opinion. Entering upon his career in an age of obsequiousness and time-serving, when the values of political and religious views were estimated by what they would bring from the ruling party and from the church, in offices and emoluments and benefices, he assailed the giant evils of the times with the strength and power of Hercules and ground them to dust under his trip-hammer blows. Throughout his whole active life, there has been no greater and more potential influence than the personality of this sublime character in breaking the shackles of the slave, and in freeing men and women and children from the bonds of ignorance and superstition.

I had nature in my heart, she said. Like she did, and her mother before her. There was something about us---the Weyward women---that bonded us more tightly with the natural world. We can feel it, she said, the same way we feel rage, sorrow, or joy. The animals, the birds, the plants---they let us in, recognizing us as one of their own. That is why roots and leaves yield so easily under our fingers, to form tonics that bring comfort and healing. That is why animals welcome our embrace. Why the crows---the ones who carry the sign---watch over us and do our bidding, why their touch brings our abilities into sharpest relief. Our ancestors---the women who walked these paths before us, before there were words for who they were---did not lie in the barren soil of the churchyard, encased in rotting wood. Instead, the Weyward bones rested in the woods, in the fells, where our flesh fed plants and flowers, where trees wrapped their roots around our skeletons. We did not need stonemasons to carve our names into rock as proof we had existed. All we needed was to be returned to the wild. This wildness inside gives us our name. It was men who marked us so, in the time when language was but a shoot curling from the earth. Weyward, they called us, when we would not submit, would not bend to their will. But we learned to wear the name with pride.

good quality corporate bonds yielding 10% or better with great call protection.

The valuation picture is very much affected by our zero-based interest rate structure. Clearly, stocks are worth far more when government bonds yield 1% than when they yield 5%.

Capital efficiently and frequently flows between bonds and stocks. It pays to keep an eye on yields offered by these markets.

One thing I've noticed since I quit drinking is that a person usually has two or three sets of impulses scratching away at some internal door at any given time. If you're sober--if you're alert, and paying attention to those impulses, and not yielding to the instinct to anesthetize them--you can receive a lot of guidance about where to go, what to do next in life.

A 15,000-year bond has yielded a much deeper understanding and affection between humans and dogs than between humans and any other animal.4 In some cases dead dogs were even buried ceremoniously, much like humans.

If she had already yielded, if she had already swallowed that insult, her bond with Stefano must truly be strong. She loved him, she loved him like the girls in the photonovels. For her whole life she would sacrifice to him every quality of her own, and he wouldn't even be aware of the sacrifice, he would be surrounded by the wealth of feeling, intelligence, imagination that were hers, without knowing what to do with them, he would ruin them.

When foreign military spending [bombing Korea and Vietnam] forced the U.S. balance of payments into deficit and drove the United States off gold in 1971, central banks were left without the traditional asset used to settle payments imbalances. The alternative by default was to invest their subsequent payments inflows in U.S. Treasury bonds, as if these still were “as good as gold.” Central banks have been holding some $4 trillion of these bonds in their international reserves for the past few years — and these loans have financed most of the U.S. Government’s domestic budget deficits for over three decades. Given the fact that about half of U.S. Government discretionary spending is for military operations — including more than 750 foreign military bases and increasingly expensive operations in the oil-producing and transporting countries — the international financial system is organized in a way that finances the Pentagon, along with U.S. buyouts of foreign assets expected to yield much more than the Treasury bonds that foreign central banks hold.

Dogs that were most attentive to the needs and feelings of their human companions got extra care and food, and were more likely to survive. Simultaneously, dogs learned to manipulate people for their own needs. A 15,000-year bond has yielded a much deeper understanding and affection between humans and dogs than between humans and any other animal.

I do not know which impulse was stronger in me when I began to think: the original thirst for knowledge or the urge to communicate with man. Knowledge attains its full meaning only through the bond that unites men; however, the urge to achieve agreement with another human being was so hard to satisfy. I was shocked by the lack of understanding, paralyzed, as it were, by every reconciliation in which what had gone before was not fully cleared up. Early in my life and then later again and again I was perplexed by people’s rigid inaccessibility and their failure to listen to reasons, their disregard of facts, their indifference which prohibited discussion, their defensive attitude which kept you at a distance and at the decisive moment buried any possibility of a close approach, and finally their shamelessness, that bares its own soul without reserve, as though no one were present. When ready assent occurred I remained unsatisfied, because it was not based on true insight but on yielding to persuasion; because it was the consequence of friendly cooperation, not a meeting of two selves. True, I knew the glory of friendship (in common studies, in the cordial atmosphere of home or countryside). But then came the moments of strangeness, as if human beings lived in different worlds. Steadily the consciousness of loneliness grew upon me in my youth, yet nothing seemed more pernicious to me than loneliness, especially the loneliness in the midst of social intercourse that deceives itself in a multitude of friendships. No urge seemed stronger to me than that for communication with others. If the never-completed movement of communication succeeds with but a single human being, everything is achieved. It is a criterion of this success that there be a readiness to communicate with every human being encountered and that grief is felt whenever communication fails. Not merely an exchange of words, nor friendliness and sociability, but only the constant urge towards total revelation reaches the path of communication.

Another option in a harsh environment is to act in the opposite manner and be intensely persistent and hypervigilant about staying close to your attachment figure (hence, the anxious attachment style). In a more peaceful setting, the intimate bonds formed by investing greatly in a particular individual would yield greater benefits for both the individual and his or her offspring (hence, the secure attachment style).

The central fact of biblical history, the birth of the Messiah, more than any other, presupposes the design of Providence in the selecting and uniting of successive producers, and the real, paramount interest of the biblical narratives is concentrated on the various and wondrous fates, by which are arranged the births and combinations of the 'fathers of God.' But in all this complicated system of means, having determined in the order of historical phenomena the birth of the Messiah, there was no room for love in the proper meaning of the word. Love is, of course, encountered in the Bible, but only as an independent fact and not as an instrument in the process of the genealogy of Christ. The sacred book does not say that Abram took Sarai to wife by force of an ardent love, and in any case Providence must have waited until this love had grown completely cool for the centenarian progenitors to produce a child of faith, not of love. Isaac married Rebekah not for love but in accordance with an earlier formed resolution and the design of his father. Jacob loved Rachel, but this love turned out to be unnecessary for the origin of the Messiah. He was indeed to be born of a son of Jacob - Judah - but the latter was the offspring, not of Rachel but of the unloved wife, Leah. For the production in the given generation of the ancestor of the Messiah, what was necessary was the union of Jacob precisely with Leah; but to attain this union Providence did not awaken in Jacob any powerful passion of love for the future mother of the 'father of God' - Judah. Not infringing the liberty of Jacob's heartfelt feeling, the higher power permitted him to love Rachel, but for his necessary union with Leah it made use of means of quite a different kind: the mercenary cunning of a third person - devoted to his own domestic and economic interests - Laban. Judah himself, for the production of the remote ancestors of the Messiah, besides his legitimate posterity, had in his old age to marry his daughter-in-law Tamar. Seeing that such a union was not at all in the natural order of things, and indeed could not take place under ordinary conditions, that end was attained by means of an extremely strange occurrence very seductive to superficial readers of the Bible. Nor in such an occurrence could there be any talk of love. It was not love which combined the priestly harlot Rahab with the Hebrew stranger; she yielded herself to him at first in the course of her profession, and afterwards the casual bond was strengthened by her faith in the power of the new God and in the desire for his patronage for herself and her family. It was not love which united David's great-grandfather, the aged Boaz, with the youthful Moabitess Ruth, and Solomon was begotten not from genuine, profound love, but only from the casual, sinful caprice of a sovereign who was growing old.

The new faith sought to break the human bond with magic nature, to disenchant the world of plants and animals by directing our attention to a single God in the sky. Yet Jehovah couldn’t very well pretend the tree of knowledge didn’t exist, not when generations of plant-worshiping pagans knew better. So the pagan tree is allowed to grow even in Eden, though ringed around now with a strong taboo. Yes, there is spiritual knowledge in nature, the new God is acknowledging, and its temptations are fierce, but I am fiercer still. Yield to it, and you will be punished. So unfolds the drug war’s first battle.

Goldman Sachs itself—and so Goldman was in the position of selling bonds to its customers created by its own traders, so they might bet against them. Secondly, there was a crude, messy, slow, but acceptable substitute for Mike Burry’s credit default swaps: the actual cash bonds. According to a former Goldman derivatives trader, Goldman would buy the triple-A tranche of some CDO, pair it off with the credit default swaps AIG sold Goldman that insured the tranche (at a cost well below the yield on the tranche), declare the entire package risk-free, and hold it off its balance sheet. Of course, the whole thing wasn’t risk-free: If AIG went bust, the insurance was worthless, and Goldman could lose everything. Today Goldman Sachs is, to put it mildly, unhelpful when asked to explain exactly what it did, and this lack of transparency extends to its own shareholders. “If a team of forensic accountants went over Goldman’s books, they’d be shocked at just how good Goldman is at hiding things,

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind, which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved, and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her virtues, and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind, and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind.

Aelin lifted onto her toes. She felt Rowan’s eyes on her the whole time, felt his body go still with predatory focus, as she kissed the corner of his mouth, the bow of his lips, the other corner. Soft, taunting kisses. Designed to see which one of them yielded first. Rowan did. With a sharp intake of breath, he gripped her hips, tugging her against him as he slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss until her knees threatened to buckle. His tongue brushed hers—lazy, deft strokes that told her precisely what he was capable of doing elsewhere. Embers sparked in her blood, and the moss beneath them hissed as rain turned to steam. Aelin broke the kiss, breathing ragged, satisfied to find Rowan’s own chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. So new—this thing between them was still so new, so … raw. Utterly consuming. The desire was only the start of it. Rowan made her magic sing. And maybe that was the carranam bond between them, but … her magic wanted to dance with his. And from the frost sparkling in his eyes, she knew his own demanded the same.

unfairness can take many forms. It can take the form of the inheritance of property—bonds and stocks, houses, factories; it can also take the form of the inheritance of talent—musical ability, strength, mathematical genius. The inheritance of property can be interfered with more readily than the inheritance of talent. But from an ethical point of view, is there any difference between the two? Yet many people resent the inheritance of property but not the inheritance of talent. Look at the same issue from the point of view of the parent. If you want to assure your child a higher income in life, you can do so in various ways. You can buy him (or her) an education that will equip him to pursue an occupation yielding a high income; or you can set him up in a business that will yield a higher income than he could earn as a salaried employee; or you can leave him property, the income from which will enable him to live better. Is there any ethical difference among these three ways of using your property? Or again, if the state leaves you any money to spend over and above taxes, should the state permit you to spend it on riotous living but not to leave it to your children?

Sic Vita I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methinks, For milder weather. A bunch of violets without their roots, And sorrel intermixed, Encircled by a wisp of straw Once coiled about their shoots, The law By which I'm fixed. A nosegay which Time clutched from out Those fair Elysian fields, With weeds and broken stems, in haste, Doth make the rabble rout That waste The day he yields. And here I bloom for a short hour unseen, Drinking my juices up, With no root in the land To keep my branches green, But stand In a bare cup. Some tender buds were left upon my stem In mimicry of life, But ah! the children will not know, Till time has withered them, The woe With which they're rife. But now I see I was not plucked for naught, And after in life's vase Of glass set while I might survive, But by a kind hand brought Alive To a strange place. That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours, And by another year, Such as God knows, with freer air, More fruits and fairer flowers Will bear, While I droop here.

IF, O most illustrious Knight, I had driven a plough, pastured a herd, tended a garden, tailored a garment: none would regard me, few observe me, seldom a one reprove me; and I could easily satisfy all men. But since I would survey the field of Nature, care for the nourishment of the soul, foster the cultivation of talent, become expert as Daedalus concerning the ways of the intellect; lo, one doth threaten upon beholding me, another doth assail me at sight, another doth bite upon reaching me, yet another who hath caught me would devour me; not one, nor few, they are many, indeed almost all. If you would know why, it is because I hate the mob, I loathe the vulgar herd and in the multitude I find no joy. It is Unity that doth enchant me. By her power I am free though thrall, happy in sorrow, rich in poverty, and quick even in death. Through her virtue I envy not those who are bond though free, who grieve in the midst of pleasures, who endure poverty in their wealth, and a living death. They carry their chains within them; their spirit containeth her own hell that bringeth them low; within their soul is the disease that wasteth, and within their mind the lethargy that bringeth death. They are without the generosity that would enfranchise, the long suffering that exalteth, the splendour that doth illumine, knowledge that bestoweth life. Therefore I do not in weariness shun the arduous path, nor idly refrain my arm from the present task, nor retreat in despair from the enemy that confronteth me, nor do I turn my dazzled eyes from the divine end. Yet I am aware that I am mostly held to be a sophist, seeking rather to appear subtle than to reveal the truth; an ambitious fellow diligent rather to support a new and false sect than to establish the ancient and true; a snarer of birds who pursueth the splendour of fame, by spreading ahead the darkness of error; an unquiet spirit that would undermine the edifice of good discipline to establish the frame of perversity. Wherefore, my lord, may the heavenly powers scatter before me all those who unjustly hate me; may my God be ever gracious unto me; may all the rulers of our world be favourable to me; may the stars yield me seed for the field and soil for the seed, that the harvest of my labour may appear to the world useful and glorious, that souls may be awakened and the understanding of those in darkness be illumined. For assuredly I do not feign; and if I err, I do so unwittingly; nor do I in speech or writing contend merely for victory, for I hold worldly repute and hollow success without truth to be hateful to God, most vile and dishonourable. But I thus exhaust, vex and torment myself for love of true wisdom and zeal for true contemplation. This I shall make manifest by conclusive arguments, dependent on lively reasonings derived from regulated sensation, instructed by true phenomena; for these as trustworthy ambassadors emerge from objects of Nature, rendering themselves present to those who seek them, obvious to those who gaze attentively on them, clear to those who apprehend, certain and sure to those who understand. Thus I present to you my contemplation concerning the infinite universe and innumerable worlds.

I have chosen to use the terms lesbian existence and lesbian continuum because the word lesbianism has a clinical and limiting ring Lesbian existence suggests both the fact of the historical presence of lesbians and our continuing creation of the meaning of that existence I mean the term lesbian continuum to include a range—through each woman’s life and throughout history—of woman-identified experience; not simply the fact that a woman has had or consciously desired genital sexual experience with another woman. If we expand it to embrace many more forms of primary intensity between and among women, including the sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical and political support; if we can also hear in it such associations as marriage resistance and the ‘haggard’ behavior identified by Mary Daly (obsolete meanings ‘intractable,’ ‘willful,’ ‘wanton,’ and ‘unchaste’ a woman reluctant to yield to wooing’)—we begin to grasp breadths of female history and psychology that have lain out of reach as a consequence of limited, mostly clinical, definitions of ‘lesbianism.’ Lesbian existence comprises both the breaking of a taboo and the rejection of a compulsory way of life It is also a direct or indirect attack on male right of access to women But it is more than these, although we may first begin to perceive it as a form of nay-saying to patriarchy, an act or resistance It has of course included role playing, self-hatred, breakdown, alcoholism, suicide, and intrawoman violence; we romanticize at our peril what it means to love and act against the grain, and under heavy penalties; and lesbian existence has been lived (unlike, say, Jewish or Catholic existence) without access to any knowledge of a tradition, a continuity, a social underpinning The destruction of records and memorabilia and letters documenting the realities of lesbian existence must be taken very seriously as a means of keeping heterosexuality compulsory for women, since what has been kept from our knowledge is joy, sensuality, courage, and community, as well as guilt, self-betrayal, and pain.

In Andhra, farmers fear Naidu’s land pool will sink their fortunes Prasad Nichenametla,Hindustan Times | 480 words The state festival tag added colour to Sankranti in Andhra Pradesh this time. But the hue of happiness was missing in 29 villages along river Krishna in Guntur district. The villagers knew it was their last Sankranti, a harvest festival celebrated to seek agricultural prosperity. For in two months, more than 30,000 acres of fertile farmland would be acquired for a brand new capital planned in collaboration with Singapore. The Nara Chandrababu Naidu government went about the capital project by setting aside the Centre’s land acquisition act and drawing up a compensation package for land-owning and tenant farmers and labourers. Many are opposed to it, and are not keen on snapping their centuries-old bond with their land and livelihood. In Penumaka village, Nageshwara Rao, 50, fears the future as he does not possess a tenancy certificate that could have brought some relief under the compensation package. “The entire village is against land-pooling but we hear the government is adamant,” Rao says, referring to municipal minister P Narayana’s alleged assertion that land would be taken with or without the farmers’ consent. Narayana is supervising the land-pooling process. “Naidu says he would give us Rs 50,000 per year in lieu of annual crops. We earn that much in a month here,” villager Meka Koti Reddy says. To drive home the point, locals in Undavalli village nearby have put up a board asking officials to keep off their lands that produce three crops a year. Unlike other parts of Andhra Pradesh, the water-rich land here is highly productive yielding 200 varieties of crops. Some farmers are also suspicious about the compensation because Naidu is yet to deliver on the loan-waiver promise. They are now weighing legal options besides seeking Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to retain their land. While the villagers opposing land-pooling are allegedly being backed by Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSR Congress Party, those belonging to the Kamma community — the support base for Naidu’s Telugu Desam Party — are said to be cooperative.  It is also believed that Naidu chose this location over others suggested by experts to primarily benefit the Kamma industrialists who own large swathes of land in Krishna and Guntur districts. But even the pro-project villagers cannot help feel insecure. “We are clueless about where our developed area would be. What if the project is not executed within Naidu’s tenure? Is there a legal recourse?” Idupulapati Rambabu of Mandadam says. This is despite Naidu’s assurance on January 1 at nearby Thulluru, where he launched the land-pooling process, asking farmers to give land without any apprehension. He said the deal in its present form would make them richer than him in a decade. “We are not building a mere city but a hub of economic activity loaded with superior infrastructure that is aimed at generating wealth. This would be a win-win situation for all,” Naidu tells HT. As of now, villages like Nelapadu struggling with low soil fertility seem to be winning from the package.

There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. "These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows. "But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. "Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. "Our answer is to rely on youth - not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we live in; and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. "Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. "These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. "Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.

At the end of 2012, the yield on nominal bonds was about 2 percent. The only way that bonds could generate a 7.8 percent real return is if the consumer price index fell by nearly 6 percent per year over the next 30 years. Yet a deflation of this magnitude has never been sustained by any country in world history.

The ECB in June became the first of the world’s main central banks to push a key policy rate below zero. But after Thursday’s cuts Mr Draghi said he saw no scope for further reductions. While yields on shorter-dated bond yields typically held by banks have fallen, the impact of the ECB’s latest measures on longer-term debt is less certain. Yields on benchmark 10-year bonds should rise if the ECB succeeds in raising expectations about future growth and inflation rates. However, speculation that the ECB could still launch a full-blown “quantitative easing” programme and buy government bonds would have the opposite effect. Analysts said even the asset purchase programme announced on Thursday could have QE-type effects.

must be wrestled: this is no account of inspiration; it figures instead strenuous poetic labor.66 Proteus sponsors a sense of poetic form as constraint; notions of organic or expressive form are irrelevant to his legend. For only by constraint will he give answer: He bends to no entreaty; capture him With ruthless force and fetters; only these Will circumvent and shatter his designs. (Georgics 4.399–400)67 His story reveals some of what an account of poetic authority requires: struggle and labor, unstable and forceful formality, and repetitiveness; but also the merely temporary arrest of truth. Proteus is an oracle, not a figure for rhetorical artifice. One grasps him, holds on, and after his resistance is spent, he yields a truth. A grip on truth and an effort at retention, however temporary: that is what Proteus brings to a religious poetic—a stubborn, willful grasp on an elusive oracle. We speak of orphic fragments, enigmas, but not of forms fulfilled. Proteus supplements orphic poetics by sponsoring perseverance within explicit bonds: the origin of poetry, for him, is metamorphosis.

remember that the interest is paid on the face value of the bond, so if you can buy a 5 per cent bond at just 10 per cent of its face value you can earn a handsome yield of 50 per cent. In essence, you expect a return proportional to the risk you are prepared to take.

Buying a 100,000 yen bond keeps the capital sum safe while also providing regular payments to the saver. To be precise, the bond pays a fixed rate or ‘coupon’ of 1.5 per cent: 1,500 yen a year in the case of a 100,000 yen bond. But the market interest rate or current yield is calculated by dividing the coupon by the market price, which is currently 102,333 yen: 1,500 ÷ 102,333 = 1.47 per cent.

as masters of the bond market, the Rothschilds were already more feared than loved. Reactionaries on the Right lamented the rise of a new form of wealth, higher-yielding and more liquid than the landed estates of Europe’s aristocratic elites. As Heinrich Heine discerned, there was something profoundly revolutionary about the financial system the Rothschilds were creating:

financial markets saw the war of 1914–18 coming, we should expect to see declines in bond prices or rises in bond yields (since the yield is essentially the interest paid on a bond divided by its market price).

The pressure on life businesses and the capital fears prompted by the 2008 crisis have prompted the industry to build bigger capital cushions and cut costs. This has left insurers in a relatively good position. Investors have enjoyed decent dividends with payouts increasing by a cumulative 70% since 2009, according to FactSet. For shareholders, the risks to returns from life insurance have, so far, been balanced by earnings from nonlife insurance and asset management. Germany’s Allianz has U.S. bond house Pacific Investment Management Co. and nonlife insurance businesses, like property and casualty cover, around the world. Pimco has done well as interest rates declined and bond prices rose, but is expected to suffer once rates rise again—especially since founder Bill Gross walked out. France’s Axa similarly has global nonlife businesses and a large investment manager. However, these businesses ultimately will suffer from low investment returns. In nonlife, insurers can combat this with tougher underwriting standards. But demand for property-type insurance also suffers in a slower economy. Allianz has the lowest financial leverage of the big-three eurozone life insurers, and so has more flexibility to look for higher returns abroad. It also has a substantial general insurance business in the U.S., where rates should head higher sooner, and a higher expected dividend yield than France’s Axa or Italy’s Generali for this year and next.

The masses long ago switched from stocks to investments having higher yields and more protection from inflation. Now the pension funds - the market’s last hope - have won permission to quit stocks and bonds for real estate, futures, gold, and even diamonds. The death of equities looks like an almost permanent condition.5

Mortgages were short-term, usually for three to five years, and they were not amortized. In other words, people paid interest, but did not repay the sum they had borrowed (the principal) until the end of the loan’s term, so that they ended up facing a balloon-sized final payment. The average difference (spread) between mortgage rates and high-grade corporate bond yields was about two percentage points during the 1920s, compared with about half a per cent (50 basis points) in the past twenty years.

Dublin is following in the footsteps of Portugal and Italy in issuing 30-year debt at a time when yields on eurozone bonds are hitting record lows following the European Central Bank’s decision to begin a €60bn-a-month government bond-buying programme. Portugal sold €2bn of its long-dated bond at a yield of 4.13 per cent, while Italy’s €6.5bn equivalent bond was priced to yield 3.29 per cent. Investor appetite for longer-term bonds has increased in recent months as yields on shorter-term debt fall, in some cases trading in negative territory. According to JPMorgan, the total universe of government bonds trading with a negative yield was $3.6tn last week, or 16 per cent of the JPM Global Government Bond index.

US common stock has yielded a higher return than bonds. However, price earnings ratios are much higher than they were for much of the 20th century, so it

March 14 Obedience His servants ye are to whom ye obey. Romans 6:16 The first thing to do in examining the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that I am responsible for being thus dominated because I have yielded. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame for it because at a point away back I yielded myself to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because I have yielded myself to Him. Yield in childhood to selfishness, and you will find it the most enchaining tyranny on earth. There is no power in the human soul of itself to break the bondage of a disposition formed by yielding. Yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust (remember what lust is: “I must have it at once,” whether it be the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind, once yield and though you may hate yourself for having yielded, you are a bond-slave to that thing. There is no release in human power at all, but only in the Redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One Who can break the dominating power, viz., the Lord Jesus Christ. “He hath anointed Me . . . to preach deliverance to the captives.” We find this out in the most ridiculously small ways—“Oh, I can give that habit up when I like.” You cannot, you will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you yielded to it willingly. It is easy to sing—“He will break every fetter,” and at the same time be living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. Yielding to Jesus will break every form of slavery in any human life.

is a good idea to check on the calls and what circumstances a bond can be called as most of the bonds are potentially subject to this type of call action.  This is especially true for premium bonds. If they are called early, it can affect the yield.

Mortgage securities. Pooled together from thousands of mortgages around the United States, these bonds are issued by agencies like the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae”) or the Government National Mortgage Association (“Ginnie Mae”). However, they are not backed by the U.S. Treasury, so they sell at higher yields to reflect their greater risk. Mortgage bonds generally underperform when interest rates fall and bomb when rates rise. (Over the long run, those swings tend to even out and the higher average yields pay off.) Good mortgage-bond funds are available from Vanguard, Fidelity, and Pimco. But if a broker ever tries to sell you an individual mortgage bond or “CMO,” tell him you are late for an appointment with your proctologist.

A bond price, for example, will grow with accrued interest between two coupon cuttings. That growth in its value is not income but increase of capital. Only when the coupon is detached does the bond render, or give off, a service, and so yield income. The income consists in the event of such off-giving, the yielding or separation, to use the language of the United States Supreme Court. If the coupon thus given off is reinvested in another bond, that event is outgo, and offsets the simultaneous income realized from the first bond. There is then no net income from the group but only growth of capital. If the final large payment of the principal is commonly thought of not as income (which it is if not reinvested) but as capital it is because it is usually and normally so reinvested.

Imagine that you knew Greece was still Greece and Italy was still Italy and that the prices quoted in the markets represented the bond-buying activities of banks pushing down yields rather than an estimate of the risk of the bond itself. Why would you buy such securities if the yield did not reflect the risk? You might realize that if you bought enough of them—if you became really big—and those assets lost value, you would become a danger to your national banking system and would have to be bailed out by your sovereign. If you were not bailed out, given your exposures, cross-border linkages to other banks, and high leverage, you would pose a systemic risk to the whole European financial sector. As such, the more risk that you took onto your books, especially in the form of periphery sovereign debt, the more likely it was that your risk would be covered by the ECB, your national government, or both. This would be a moral hazard trade on a continental scale. The euro may have been a political project that provided the economic incentive for this kind of trade to take place. But it was private-sector actors who quite deliberately and voluntarily jumped at the opportunity.

Gold is often sought as a refuge during times of financial travail. True to form, the price of the precious metal more than tripled in the 1999-2009 decade. But gold is largely a rank speculation, for its price is based solely on market expectations. Gold provides no internal rate of return. Unlike stocks and bonds, gold provides none of the intrinsic value that is created for stocks by earnings growth and dividend yields, and for bonds by interest payments. So in the two centuries plus shown in the chart, the initial $10,000 investment in gold grew to barely $26,000 in realterms. In fact, since the peak reached during its earlier boom in 1980, the price of gold has lost nearly 40 percent of its real value.

She regarded her grandchildren as if we were savings bonds, something certain to multiply in value through the majesty of arithmetic. Ya Ya and her husband had produced one child, who in turn had yielded five, a wealth of hearty field hands destined to return to the village, where we might crush olives or stucco windmills or whatever it was they did in her hometown. She was always pushing up our sleeves to examine our muscles, frowning at the sight of our girlish, uncallused hands.

I once had a foreign exchange trader who worked for me who was an unabashed chartist. He truly believed that all the information you needed was reflected in the past history of a currency. Now it's true there can be less to consider in trading currencies than individual equities, since at least for developed country currencies it's typically not necessary to pore over their financial statements every quarter. And in my experience, currencies do exhibit sustainable trends more reliably than, say, bonds or commodities. Imbalances caused by, for example, interest rate differentials that favor one currency over another (by making it more profitable to invest in the higher-yielding one) can persist for years. Of course, another appeal of charting can be that it provides a convenient excuse to avoid having to analyze financial statements or other fundamental data. Technical analysts take their work seriously and apply themselves to it diligently, but it's also possible for a part-time technician to do his market analysis in ten minutes over coffee and a bagel. This can create the false illusion of being a very efficient worker. The FX trader I mentioned was quite happy to engage in an experiment whereby he did the trades recommended by our in-house market technician. Both shared the same commitment to charts as an under-appreciated path to market success, a belief clearly at odds with the in-house technician's avoidance of trading any actual positions so as to provide empirical proof of his insights with trading profits. When challenged, he invariably countered that managing trading positions would challenge his objectivity, as if holding a losing position would induce him to continue recommending it in spite of the chart's contrary insight. But then, why hold a losing position if it's not what the chart said? I always found debating such tortured logic a brief but entertaining use of time when lining up to get lunch in the trader's cafeteria. To the surprise of my FX trader if not to me, the technical analysis trading account was unprofitable. In explaining the result, my Kool-Aid drinking trader even accepted partial responsibility for at times misinterpreting the very information he was analyzing. It was along the lines of that he ought to have recognized the type of pattern that was evolving but stupidly interpreted the wrong shape. It was almost as if the results were not the result of the faulty religion but of the less than completely faithful practice of one of its adherents. So what use to a profit-oriented trading room is a fully committed chartist who can't be trusted even to follow the charts? At this stage I must confess that we had found ourselves in this position as a last-ditch effort on my part to salvage some profitability out of a trader I'd hired who had to this point been consistently losing money. His own market views expressed in the form of trading positions had been singularly unprofitable, so all that remained was to see how he did with somebody else's views. The experiment wasn't just intended to provide a “live ammunition” record of our in-house technician's market insights, it was my last best effort to prove that my recent hiring decision hadn't been a bad one. Sadly, his failure confirmed my earlier one and I had to fire him. All was not lost though, because he was able to transfer his unsuccessful experience as a proprietary trader into a new business advising clients on their hedge fund investments.

In June 1949 the S & P composite index sold at only 6.3 times the applicable earnings of the past 12 months; in March 1961 the ratio was 22.9 times. Similarly, the dividend yield on the S & P index had fallen from over 7% in 1949 to only 3.0% in 1961, a contrast heightened by the fact that interest rates on high-grade bonds had meanwhile risen from 2.60% to 4.50%. This is certainly the most remarkable turnabout in the public’s attitude in all stock-market history.

High-yield bonds—which Graham calls “second-grade” or “lower-grade” and today are called “junk bonds”—get a brisk thumbs-down from Graham. In his day, it was too costly and cumbersome for an individual investor to diversify away the risks of default.;1 (To learn how bad a default can be, and how carelessly even “sophisticated” professional bond investors can buy into one, see the sidebar on p. 146.) Today, however, more than 130 mutual funds specialize in junk bonds. These funds buy junk by the cartload; they hold dozens of different bonds. That mitigates Graham’s complaints about the difficulty of diversifying. (However, his bias against high-yield preferred stock remains valid, since there remains no cheap and widely available way to spread their risks.) Since 1978, an annual average of 4.4% of the junk-bond market has gone into default—but, even after those defaults, junk bonds have still produced an annualized return of 10.5%, versus 8.6% for 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds.2 Unfortunately, most junk-bond funds charge high fees and do a poor job of preserving the original principal amount of your investment. A junk fund could be appropriate if you are retired, are looking for extra monthly income to supplement your pension, and can tolerate temporary tumbles in value. If you work at a bank or other financial company, a sharp rise in interest rates could limit your raise or even threaten your job security—so a junk fund, which tends to outper-forms most other bond funds when interest rates rise, might make sense as a counterweight in your 401(k). A junk-bond fund, though, is only a minor option—not an obligation—for the intelligent investor.

Buying a bond only for its yield is like getting married only for the sex. If the thing that attracted you in the first place dries up, you’ll find yourself asking, “What else is there?” When the answer is “Nothing,” spouses and bondholders alike end up with broken hearts. On May 9, 2001, WorldCom, Inc. sold the biggest offering of bonds in U.S. corporate history—$11.9 billion worth. Among the eager beavers attracted by the yields of up to 8.3% were the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, one of the world’s largest pension funds; Retirement Systems of Alabama, whose managers later explained that “the higher yields” were “very attractive to us at the time they were purchased”; and the Strong Corporate Bond Fund, whose comanager was so fond of WorldCom’s fat yield that he boasted, “we’re getting paid more than enough extra income for the risk.” 1 But even a 30-second glance at WorldCom’s bond prospectus would have shown that these bonds had nothing to offer but their yield—and everything to lose. In two of the previous five years WorldCom’s pretax income (the company’s profits before it paid its dues to the IRS) fell short of covering its fixed charges (the costs of paying interest to its bondholders) by a stupendous $4.1 billion. WorldCom could cover those bond payments only by borrowing more money from banks. And now, with this mountainous new helping of bonds, WorldCom was fattening its interest costs by another $900 million per year!2 Like Mr. Creosote in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, WorldCom was gorging itself to the bursting point. No yield could ever be high enough to compensate an investor for risking that kind of explosion. The WorldCom bonds did produce fat yields of up to 8% for a few months. Then, as Graham would have predicted, the yield suddenly offered no shelter: WorldCom filed bankruptcy in July 2002. WorldCom admitted in August 2002 that it had overstated its earnings by more than $7 billion.3 WorldCom’s bonds defaulted when the company could no longer cover their interest charges; the bonds lost more than 80% of their original value.

you must have carbon.23  Arsenic, boron, and silicon are the only other elements on which complex molecules can be based, but arsenic and boron are relatively rare and, where concentrated, poisonous to life, and silicon can hold together no more than about a hundred amino acids. Only carbon yields the chemical bonding stability and bonding complexity that life requires. Given the constraints of physics and chemistry, we now know that physical life must be carbon-based.

The Global Financial Crisis shows the credit cycle at the greatest extreme since the Great Depression. Debt markets historically had been marked by general conservatism, meaning excesses on the upside were limited and most bubbles took place in the equity market. Certainly it was the site of the Great Crash of 1929. But the creation of the high yield bond market in the late 1970s kicked off a liberalization of debt investing, and the generally positive economic environment of the subsequent three decades provided those who ventured in with a favorable overall experience. This combination led to a strong trend toward acceptance of low-rated and non-traditional debt instruments. There were periods of weakness in debt in 1990–91 (related to widespread bankruptcies among the highly levered buyouts of the 1980s) and in 2002 (stemming from excessive borrowing to fund overbuilding in the telecom industry, which led to prominent downgrades that coincided with several high-profile corporate accounting scandals). But the effects of these were limited because of the isolated nature of their causes. It wasn’t until 2007–08 that the financial markets witnessed the first widespread, debt-induced panic, with ramifications for the entire economy. Thus the GFC provided the ultimate example of the credit cycle’s full effect.

Nearly all the bull markets had a number of well-defined characteristics in common, such as (1) a historically high price level, (2) high price/earnings ratios, (3) low dividend yields as against bond yields, (4) much speculation on margin, and (5) many offerings of new common-stock issues of poor quality. Thus to the student of stock-market history it appeared that the intelligent investor should have been able to identify the recurrent bear and bull markets, to buy in the former and sell in the latter, and to do so for the most part at reasonably short intervals of time. Various methods were developed for determining buying and selling levels of the general market, based on either value factors or percentage movements of prices or both. But we must point out that even prior to the unprecedented bull market that began in 1949, there were sufficient variations in the successive market cycles to complicate and sometimes frustrate the desirable process of buying low and selling high. The most notable of these departures, of course, was the great bull market of the late 1920s, which threw all calculations badly out

What else should you watch for? Most fund buyers look at past performance first, then at the manager’s reputation, then at the riskiness of the fund, and finally (if ever) at the fund’s expenses.8 The intelligent investor looks at those same things—but in the opposite order. Since a fund’s expenses are far more predictable than its future risk or return, you should make them your first filter. There’s no good reason ever to pay more than these levels of annual operating expenses, by fund category: Taxable and municipal bonds: 0.75% U.S. equities (large and mid-sized stocks): 1.0% High-yield (junk) bonds: 1.0% U.S. equities (small stocks): 1.25% Foreign stocks: 1.50%9 Next, evaluate risk. In its prospectus (or buyer’s guide), every fund must show a bar graph displaying its worst loss over a calendar quarter. If you can’t stand losing at least that much money in three months, go elsewhere. It’s also worth checking a fund’s Morningstar rating. A leading investment research firm, Morningstar awards “star ratings” to funds, based on how much risk they took to earn their returns (one star is the worst, five is the best). But, just like past performance itself, these ratings look back in time; they tell you which funds were the best, not which are going to be. Five-star funds, in fact, have a disconcerting habit of going on to underperform one-star funds. So first find a low-cost fund whose managers are major shareholders, dare to be different, don’t hype their returns, and have shown a willingness to shut down before they get too big for their britches. Then, and only then, consult their Morningstar rating.10 Finally, look at past performance, remembering that it is only a pale predictor of future returns. As we’ve already seen, yesterday’s winners often become tomorrow’s losers. But researchers have shown that one thing is almost certain: Yesterday’s losers almost never become tomorrow’s winners. So avoid funds with consistently poor past returns—especially if they have above-average annual expenses.

That is why the most important calculation to know in owning bonds is known as yield to maturity. Yield to maturity (YTM) takes this critical maturity value concept into account.

As I mentioned, the primary difference between the two yields is known as the credit spread, but credit risk is not the only factor that leads corporate bonds to deliver better returns than government bonds. Other key factors include tax treatment, illiquidity, call features, and the unique provisions that are included in the contracts of corporate bonds—characteristics that government bonds simply don’t offer.

This includes states, towns, cities, counties, school districts, hospitals, transportation authorities, universities and colleges, housing projects, road and highway authorities, water districts, and power districts.

General obligation bonds are often viewed as being safer than “revenue” bonds. The former are funded by fees and taxes, which can be raised - and the latter are funded from the income of a specific project.

Instead use Yield-To-Maturity to compare individual bonds, use 30-day SEC Yield to compare bond funds, or use total return to compare anything with anything.

In June 1970 the question “How much?” could be answered by the magic figure 9.40%—the yield obtainable on new offerings of high-grade public-utility bonds. This has now dropped to about 7.3%, but even that return tempts us to ask, “Why give any other answer?

But there are hundreds of closed-end bond funds, with especially strong choices available in the municipal-bond area. When these funds trade at a discount, their yield is amplified and they can be attractive, so long as their annual expenses are below the thresholds listed above.

There’s no good reason ever to pay more than these levels of annual operating expenses, by fund category: Taxable and municipal bonds: 0.75% U.S. equities (large and mid-sized stocks): 1.0% High-yield (junk) bonds: 1.0% U.S. equities (small stocks): 1.25% Foreign stocks: 1.50%9

MBS face all of the regular risks (changing interest rates, for example) linked to bonds and other fixed-income securities, and two that are unique to them. These special risks are tied to the underlying mortgages: homeowners could default (stop making payments, substantially more likely with private-label MBS) or pay off their loans early, either of which would affect investor yield and cash flows.

Explaining their allure, Milken said, “The opportunity to be true to yourself in high-yield bonds is great. It is not like buying a stock. With a stock, its value is generally dependent upon investors’ collective perceptions of the future. No matter how much research you have done regarding a particular stock, you don’t have a contract as to what the future price will be. But with a high-yield bond there is a date certain in the future when it matures, and if you hold it to maturity and your analysis is correct, you will be correct in your calculation of your yield—and you do have a contract as to future price. One is certain if you’re right. The other is not.

Milken told his boss, Edwin Kantor, who was in charge of all fixed-income trading, that he wanted to create an autonomous unit, with its own sales force, its own traders and its own research people: the high-yield- and convertible-bond department. Selling these low-rated bonds, he explained, was more like selling stocks than it was like selling high-grade bonds. If a bond was rated triple A by a rating agency, institutions bought them based on that rating—not on the salesman’s pitch about the company. But to convince an investor to buy a bond with a C rating you had to tell the company’s story. You had to know the company’s management, its product, its balance sheet, its earnings trend and cash flow—just as you would in trying to sell the stock of a little-known company.

Simultaneously, dogs learned to manipulate people for their own needs. A 15,000-year bond has yielded a much deeper understanding and affection between humans and dogs than between humans and any other animal.4 In some cases dead dogs were even buried ceremoniously, much like humans.

For example, only some members of a hunting society have the experience of losing their weapons and being forced to fight a wild animal with their bare hands. This frightening experience, with whatever lessons in bravery, cunning and skill it yields, is firmly sedimented in the consciousness of the individuals who went through it. If the experience is shared by several individuals, it will be sedimented intersubjectively, may perhaps even form a profound bond between these individuals. As this experience is designated and transmitted linguistically, however, it becomes accessible and, perhaps, strongly relevant to individuals who have never gone through it. The linguistic designation (which, in a hunting society, we may imagine to be very precise and elaborate indeed—say, “lone, big kill, with one hand, of male rhinoceros,” “lone big kill, with two hands, of female rhinoceros,” and so forth) abstracts the experience from its individual biographical occurrences. It becomes an objective possibility for everyone, or at any rate for everyone within a certain type (say, fully initiated hunters); that is, it becomes anonymous in principle even if it is still associated with the feats of specific individuals. Even to those who do not anticipate the experience in their own future biography (say, women forbidden to hunt), it may be relevant in a derived manner (say, in terms of the desirability of a future husband); in any case it is part of the common stock of knowledge. The objectification of the experience in the language (that is, its transformation into a generally available object of knowledge) then allows its incorporation into a larger body of tradition by way of moral instruction, inspirational poetry, religious allegory, and whatnot. Both the experience in the narrower sense and its appendage of wider significations can then be taught to every new generation, or even diffused to an altogether different collectivity (say, an agriculture society that may attach quite different meanings to the whole business). Language

I had no room for a child. My lifestyle barely yielded to include a spouse. How could I spare the time for another little being? One that would be dependent on every weeping request? The unbelievable adjustments I would have to make to pursue this venture of parenting was overwhelming.

There's a saying on Wall Street that certain investments are sold, not bought, in that they require a salesman to push them on a willing investor rather than the buyer actively seeking them out. This would certainly apply to non-traded REITS. Because the first question any investor, or for that matter well-intentioned advisor, should ask before considering non-traded REITs is how the sector is likely to perform going forward. Asset allocation, the choice of how much an investor should put in stocks, investment grade bonds, REITs, high-yield bonds, commodities, or any other asset class generally drives 80% to 90% of the investor's overall return.

Indeed the mind of Ilúvatar concerning you is not known to the Valar, and he has not revealed all things that are to come. But this we hold to be true, that your home is not here, neither in the Land of Aman nor anywhere within the Circles of the World. And the Doom of Men, that they should depart, was at first a gift of Ilúvatar. It became a grief to them only because coming under the shadow of Morgoth it seemed to them that they were surrounded by a great darkness, of which they were afraid; and some grew wilful and proud and would not yield, until life was reft from them. We who bear the ever-mounting burden of the years do not clearly understand this; but if that grief has returned to trouble you, as you say, then we fear that the Shadow arises once more and grows again in your hearts. Therefore, though you be the Dúnedain, fairest of Men, who escaped from the Shadow of old and fought valiantly against it, we say to you: Beware! The will of Eru may not be gainsaid; and the Valar bid you earnestly not to withhold the trust to which you are called, lest soon it become again a bond by which you are constrained. Hope rather that in the end even the least of your desires shall have fruit. The love of Arda was set in your hearts by Ilúvatar, and he does not plant to no purpose.

Aelin lifted onto her toes. She felt Rowan’s eyes on her the whole time, felt his body go still with predatory focus, as she kissed the corner of his mouth, the bow of his lips, the other corner. Soft, taunting kisses. Designed to see which one of them yielded first. Rowan did. With a sharp intake of breath, he gripped her hips, tugging her against him as he slanted his mouth over hers, deepening the kiss until her knees threatened to buckle. His tongue brushed hers—lazy, deft strokes that told her precisely what he was capable of doing elsewhere. Embers sparked in her blood, and the moss beneath them hissed as rain turned to steam. Aelin broke the kiss, breathing ragged, satisfied to find Rowan’s own chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. So new—this thing between them was still so new, so … raw. Utterly consuming. The desire was only the start of it. Rowan made her magic sing. And maybe that was the carranam bond between them, but … her magic wanted to dance with his. And from the frost sparkling in his eyes, she knew his own demanded the same. Rowan leaned forward until they were brow-to-brow. “Soon,” he promised, his voice rough and low. “Let’s get somewhere safe—somewhere defensible.” Because her safety always would come first. For him, keeping her protected, keeping her alive, would always come first. He’d learned it the hard way. Her heart strained, and she pulled back to lift a hand to his face. Rowan read the softness in her eyes, her body, and his own inherent fierceness slipped into a gentleness that so few would ever see. Her throat ached with the effort of keeping the words in. She’d been in love with him for a while now. Longer than she wanted to admit. She tried not to think about it, whether he felt the same. Those things—those wishes—were at the bottom of a very, very long and bloody priority list. So Aelin kissed Rowan gently, his hands again locking around her hips. “Fireheart,” he said onto her mouth. “Buzzard,” she murmured onto his. Rowan laughed, the rumble echoing in her chest.

The highest-risk investments include: Futures Commodities Limited partnerships Collectibles Rental real estate Penny stocks (stocks that cost less than $5 per share) Speculative stocks (such as stock in new companies) Foreign stocks from volatile nations “Junk” (or high-yield corporate) bonds Moderate-risk investments include: Growth stocks (companies that reinvest most of their profits to grow the business) Corporate bonds with lower (but still investment-grade) ratings Mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) Real estate investment trusts (REITs) Blue chip stocks Limited-risk investments include: Top-rated investment-grade corporate and municipal bonds The lowest-risk investments include: Treasury bills and bonds FDIC-insured bank CDs (certificates of deposit) Money market funds Practicing

Buying a bond only for its yield is like getting married only for the sex. If the thing that attracted you in the first place dries up, you’ll find yourself asking, “What else is there?” When the answer is “Nothing,” spouses and bondholders alike end up with broken hearts.

While our fellow pigeons did not regard bonds between hens as unnatural, the humans who kept us certainly seemed to—and in any case such a pairing could serve no human purpose, as it would yield no champion racers, no progeny at all. While I preferred to think of us as the humans’ partners and collaborators—and we were; I wasn’t wrong—we were also their property and their tools. What did I expect?

As expected, her chicken was crispy and flavorful. The skin yielded to expose the juicy chicken meat underneath. The sweet and spicy sauce tickled and tingled my tongue with a small amount of heat. I smiled at the camera and said, "Umma, this is amazing." My hot chicken wasn't as crunchy as Mom's, but the pieces still maintained crispiness despite being moistened by the marinade. Hot, tangy, and less sticky, my breasts and wings were tasty and had a kick to them thanks to the cayenne pepper. "Oh wow. This is super tasty too! This spicy coating doesn't work as a dipping sauce though, so you're stuck with the heat level.

Investment firms are buying up more vacation homes, aiming to cash in on growing demand from tourists and remote workers. Most vacation rental homes are owned by small-time owners who list their properties on websites such as Airbnb Inc., but the number of financial firms investing in the sector is growing. New York-based investment firm Saluda Grade is launching a venture with short-term- rental operator AvantStay Inc. to buy about $500 million of homes, the companies said Tuesday. Saluda Grade said it is also looking to raise debt by selling mortgage bonds backed by its homes to investors, the first vacation-rental mortgage securitization, according to the company. Andes STR, a startup that buys and manages short-term rental homes on behalf of investors, also recently signed a deal with Chilean investment firm WEG Capital to buy roughly $80 million of properties in the U.S., Andes said. These investors are betting they can get higher returns if they rent out homes by the night instead of by the year. Low-interest rates have made it more attractive to borrow and Buy Traditional Rental Homes, inflating property prices and making it harder for new buyers to turn a profit. That has prompted some institutions and wealthy families to look in more obscure corners of the property market where competition is smaller, investment advisers say. Some are turning to investments in vacation homes, where demand has surged in many places during the pandemic as more people choose to work from remote locations and leisure travel heated up last year. “There’s a lot more yield available in the short-term market,” said Saluda Grade’s chief executive, Ryan Craft. It is the latest sign of how the pandemic is changing the way people work and live, and how real-estate investors are angling to find new ways to profit from these shifts. Saluda Grade is targeting homes within driving distance of major population centers, Mr. Craft said. His company will buy the homes and AvantStay will manage them for a fee. But while vacation-rental homes can offer higher returns, they also pose challenges to investors. Mortgages are usually more expensive and harder to get for short-term rentals than for owner-occupied homes, said Giri Devanur, CEO of reAlpha Tech Corp., a startup that wants to pool money from small-time investors to buy short-term-rental homes.

To measure the yield curve I use Moody’s Aaa Corporate Bond Yields as the long-term rate, and six-month commercial paper rates as the short-term rate. You can find these figures in government publications, Barron’s, and other financial periodicals.

But there were other types of PERLS buyers who lacked the training and experience to understand them at all. They looked at a term sheet for PERLS, and all they saw was a bond. The complex formulas eluded them; their eyes glazed over. The fact that the bonds’ principal payments were linked to changes in foreign currency rates was simply incomprehensible. These are the buyers I call widows and orphans. These are the buyers salesmen love. Some PERLS buyers had no idea that the bet they were making by buying PERLS typically was a bet against a set of “forward yield curves.” Forward yield curves are a basic, but crucial, concept in selling derivatives. The most simple “yield curve” is the curve that describes government bond yields for various maturities. Usually the curve slopes upward because as the maturity of a government bond increases, its yield also increases. You can think about this curve in terms of a bank Certificate of Deposit: You are likely to get a higher rate with a five-year CD than with a one-year CD. A yield curve is simply a graph of interest rates of different maturities.

I can explain this more easily by an example. Suppose the one-year interest rate is 5 percent and the two-year interest rate is 10 percent. This is a very steep yield curve. Suppose you want to put $100 in savings away for two years. You can either (1) lock in 10 percent for two years, or (2) lock in 5 percent for one year, and wait to see what rate you can earn during the second year. Which would you do? If you lock in 10 percent for two years, and the one-year interest rate stays the same at 5 percent, you are better off. But if you lock in 10 percent for two years, and the one-year interest rate soars to 50 percent, you are worse off. What is the one-year break-even rate? In other words, how much would one-year rates need to increase before you earned the same return with either strategy? The answer—about 15 percent—is the one-year forward rate for one year. That is, the current yield curve is predicting, based on current trading between one and two year bonds, that in one year 15 percent will be the one-year rate. The actual rate in one year might be 15 percent, or it might not. The 15 percent rate is implied by current rates. There are elaborate formulas for calculating all the forward rates for every maturity and for deriving an entire forward curve, but the analysis is no more difficult than the above example.

about the global economy,” the investigative research website Yahoo News reported in March 2020. Cash flow at nearly 17 percent of the world’s forty-five thousand public companies could not meet interest costs over three years through 2020, according to data reported by FactSet.4 Indeed, given cheap borrowing costs, thanks to central banks’ unconventional policies, many corporate firms—already highly indebted—borrowed more during the COVID-19 crisis and became bigger zombies. Their overborrowing came home to roost in 2022. Monetary policy tightening by the Fed sharply increased the spread that “high yield” bonds paid relative to safe bonds, thus vastly increasing the borrowing costs of leveraged firms that rely on “junk” bonds. Then, defaults started to increase.

The new faith sought to break the human bond with magic nature, to disenchant the world of plants and animals by directing our attention to a single God in the sky. Yet Jehovah couldn’t very well pretend the tree of knowledge didn’t exist, not when generations of plant-worshiping pagans knew better. So the pagan tree is allowed to grow even in Eden, though ringed around now with a strong taboo. Yes, there is spiritual knowledge in nature, the new God is acknowledging, and its temptations are fierce, but I am fiercer still. Yield to it, and you will be punished.

Long-term bonds compensate investors for interest-rate risks by offering higher yields and you have the further benefit of matching the timing of your assets and needs.

What was such an elder? An elder was one who took your soul, your will, into his soul and his will. When you choose an elder, you renounce your own will and yield it to him in complete submission, complete self-abnegation. This novitiate, this terrible school of abnegation, is undertaken voluntarily, in the hope of self-conquest, of self-mastery, in order, after a life of obedience, to attain perfect freedom, that is, from self; to escape the lot of those who have lived their whole life without finding their true selves in themselves. This institution of elders is not founded on theory, but was established in the East from the practice of a thousand years. The obligations due to an elder are not the ordinary “obedience” which has always existed in our Russian monasteries. The obligation involves confession to the elder by all who have submitted themselves to him, and to the indissoluble bond between him and them.

However, a small flaw developed in this market that had dire consequences years later. No one added the coupon accrued interest to their Repo transactions. Coupon accrued interest is the interest that accrues on a bond between semi-annual coupon payment dates. Basically, a bond accrues a little bit of interest each day. The value of a bond increases each day by that small amount of one day’s worth of coupon interest. In the 1950s Repo market, in order to keep things simple, Repo transactions were priced with just the principal amount of the trade. The bond’s Repo price was calculated by simply multiplying the bond’s par amount by the market price. No one added on the accrued interest. Picture this: It’s the 1950s and you don’t have a mainframe computer, calculator, or even a phone that makes basic calculations. Yes, there were hand calculations and tables that the back-office used to calculate yields and bond prices, but can you imagine how long that takes? At the time, it made back-office work just a lot easier by leaving the coupon accrued interest off of the trade. This had dire consequences down the road.

It’s importance, however, is bigger than that. Treasury securities are the risk-free yield curve for all of the financial markets. That’s right, the yields of Treasury Bills, Notes, and Bonds from overnight to 30 years make up a yield curve that is used to price all other fixed-income securities. The Treasury market is the reference rate for interest rates. Treasurys are a tool for pricing corporate bonds, municipal bonds, emerging market bonds, federal agencies, mortgage-backed securities, and other dollar assets. On top of that, they’re also a tool for speculation and hedging risk.

to the enterprising investor. He might be interested in special opportunities of the following kinds: Tax-free New Housing Authority bonds effectively guaranteed by the United States government. Taxable but high-yielding New Community bonds, also guaranteed by the United States government. Tax-free industrial bonds issued by municipalities, but serviced by lease payments made by strong corporations.

That was the first thing that struck him: although he had never given people cause to doubt his integrity, they were ready to bet on his dishonesty rather than on his virtue. The second thing that struck him was their reaction to the position they attributed to him. I might divide it into two basic types: The first type of reaction came from people who themselves (they or their intimates) had retracted something, who had themselves been forced to make public peace with the occupation regime or were prepared to do so (unwillingly, of course—no one wanted to do it). These people began to smile a curious smile at him, a smile he had never seen before: the sheepish smile of secret conspiratorial consent. It was the smile of two men meeting accidentally in a brothel: both slightly abashed, they are at the same time glad that the feeling is mutual, and a bond of something akin to brotherhood develops between them. Their smiles were all the more complacent because he had never had the reputation of being a conformist. His supposed acceptance of the chief surgeon's proposal was therefore further proof that cowardice was slowly but surely becoming the norm of behavior and would soon cease being taken for what it actually was. He had never been friends with these people, and he realized with dismay that if he did in fact make the statement the chief surgeon had requested of him, they would start inviting him to parties and he would have to make friends with them. The second type of reaction came from people who themselves (they or their intimates) had been persecuted, who had refused to compromise with the occupation powers or were convinced they would refuse to compromise (to sign a statement) even though no one had requested it of them (for instance, because they were too young to be seriously involved). . . . And suddenly Tomas grasped a strange fact: everyone was smiling at him, everyone wanted him to write the retraction; it would make everyone happy! The people with the first type of reaction would be happy because by inflating cowardice, he would make their actions seem commonplace and thereby give them back their lost honor. The people with the second type of reaction, who had come to consider their honor a special privilege never to be yielded, nurtured a secret love for the cowards, for without them their courage would soon erode into a trivial, monotonous grind admired by no one.

The primary argument for using quantitative easing is that it should lower the yields of other assets. If traditional monetary policy operates primarily by altering the short-term interest rate, quantitative easing seeks to affect the interest rates of longer term and alternative assets. The key idea here is a ‘portfolio balance channel’. Given that assets are not perfect substitutes for one another (they have different values, different risks, different returns), taking away or restricting supply of one asset should have an effect on demand for other assets. In particular, reducing the supply of government bonds should increase the demand for other financial assets. It should both lower the yield of bonds (e.g. corporate debt), thereby easing credit, and raise the asset prices of stocks (e.g. corporate equities) and subsequently create a wealth effect to spur spending.

An automobile yields to its driver regardless of his expertise and dexterity. If a driver decides to run a car into a solid wall, the car will hit the wall without objection. Riding a horse, however, presents a different perspective. It matters to the horse who the rider is, and a proper ride can be achieved only after a series of information exchanges between the horse and the rider. Horse and rider form an information-bonded system in which guidance and control are achieved by a second degree agreement (agreement based on a common perception) preceded by a psychological contract.

The key point is that, in principle, interest income is the change in price associated with the passage of time. Capital gains and losses are the changes in price related to changes in value—for bonds that means a change in the yield. We'll see in Chapter 4 when we get into bond taxation how well these economic principles hold up in practice.

In these uncertain days, bond funds are an especially important option for investors. Unlike stock funds, they have high predictability in at least these five ways: (1) The current yields (on longer-term issues) are an excellent—if imperfect—predictor of future returns. (2) The range of gross returns earned by bond managers clusters in an inevitably narrow range that is established by the current level of interest rates in each sector of the market. (3) The choices are wide. As the maturity date lengthens, volatility of principal increases, but volatility of income declines. (4) Whether taxable or municipal, bond fund returns are highly correlated with one another. Municipal bond funds are fine choices for investors in high tax brackets, and inflation-protected bond funds are a sound option for those who believe that much higher living costs will result from the huge federal government deficits of this era. (5) The greatest constant of all is that—given equivalent portfolio quality and maturity—lower costs mean higher returns. (Don’t forget that index bond funds—or their equivalent—carry the lowest costs of all.)

Treasury securities issued with a maturity of one year or less are called “bills”; from one to 10 years, “notes”; and over 10 years, “bonds.” Notes and bonds yield an interest coupon every six months. Bills do not—rather, they are issued at a discount and redeemed at par; the difference is their “yield.”)

Money Block #1: Precious Metals (20% of your total assets) Money Block #2: Global Dominators (Stocks) (30% of your total assets) Money Block #3: Cash Cows (High Yield Stocks) (20% of your total assets) Money Block #4: Lockbox IOUs (Bonds) (10% of your total assets) Money Block #5: Global Cash (10% of your total assets) Money Block #6: Money Hedge (10% of your total assets) The allocation of cash to different Money Blocks in the Wealth Shield Portfolio allows you the liquidity and flexibility of being able to access your money, being able to convert your money and being able to grow your money.

The securities lending business boils down to one concept: exchanging a security that someone needs for a different security or cash. The business is driven by the need of the dealer community to cover short positions, be it in stocks, Treasurys, agencies, corporate bonds, ADRs, or even ETFs. When a dealer is looking to cover a short position, they first check what are colloquially known as the “sec lenders.” The securities lending group will pull the security out of the end-user portfolio and lend it into the Repo market. When a securities lending group loans a security, they either receive cash or bonds in return. If they receive cash, they reinvest the cash. If they receive a bond, they earn a fee on the spread between where they loan the bond and borrow the other. In the case of cash, they need to invest it. They need an investment that generates a sufficient return to make the business viable, yet, at the same time, without taking too much risk. The safest and easiest way to invest is in overnight Treasury repo. The problem is that there’s very little profit lending a Treasury and reinvesting in a Treasury. In order to enhance returns, the securities lending groups take some risk. It’s not necessarily a lot of risk, but increasing returns involves increasing risk. It can be either interest rate risk, credit risk, or liquidity risk. Technically a combination of all three is possible, too, but that’s pretty dangerous. The yield curve is upward sloping most of the time, so investing for a longer period of time generally generates a higher yield. Let’s say the overnight rate is 2.00%, the one-month rate is 2.05%, and the three-month rate is at 2.15%. Instead of reinvesting cash overnight, there’s an extra 15 basis points for investing for three months. Since the end-investor clients usually hold their bonds to maturity, there’s only a small chance they will sell a bond during that three-month period. On top of that, the securities lending groups run multi-billion dollar portfolios, so they can ladder their investments.

A time later, I located the Fool. He knelt beside me, his arm around my shoulders. I had not been aware of him steadying me. I wobbled my head to look at him. His face sagged with weariness and his brow was creased with pain, but he managed a lopsided smile. “I did not know if I could do it. But it was the only thing I could think of to try.” After a few moments, his words made sense to me. I looked down at my wrist. His fingerprints were renewed there; not silver as they were the first time he Skill-touched me, but a darker shade of gray than they had been for some time. The thread of awareness that linked us had become one strand stronger. I was appalled at what he had done. “Thank you. I suppose.” I offered the words ungraciously. I felt invaded. I resented that he had touched me in such a way, without my consent. It was childish, but I had not the strength to reach past it just then. He laughed aloud at me, but I could hear the edge of hysteria in it. “I did not think you would like it. Yet, my friend, I could not help myself. I had to do it.” He drew a ragged breath. His voice was softer as he added, “And so it begins again, already. Scarcely two days am I at your side, and fate reaches for you. Will this always be the cost for us? Must I always dangle you over death’s jaws in an effort to lure this world into a better course?” His grip on my shoulders tightened. “Ah, Fitz. How can you continually forgive what I do to you?” I could not forgive it. I did not say so. I looked away from him. “I need a moment to myself. Please.” A bubble of silence met my words. Then, “Of course.” He let his arm fall away from my shoulders and abruptly stood clear of me. It was a relief. His touch on me had been heightening the Skill-bond between us. It made me feel vulnerable. He did not know how to reach across it and plunder my mind, but that did not lessen my fear. A knife to my throat was a threat, even if the hand that held it had only the best intentions. I tried to ignore the other side of that coin. The Fool had no concept of how open he was to me just then. The sense of it tainted me, tempting me to attempt a fuller joining. All I would have to do was bid him lay his fingers once more on my wrist. I knew what I could have done with that touch. I could have swept across into him, known all his secrets, taken all his strength. I could have made his body and extension of my own, used his life and his days for my own purpose. It was a shameful hunger to feel. I had seen what became of those who yielded to it. How could I forgive him for making me feel it?

How does she do it?" Aelin asked blandly. "With Rowan, its not... Every order i give him, even casual ones, are his to decide what to do with. Only when I actively pull on the bond can I get him to... yield. And even then its more of a suggestion." "You took the oath to each other with love I in your hearts. You had no desire to own or rule him." Aelin tried not to flinch at the truth of that word-love. That day... when Rowan had looked into her eyes as he drank her blood... she'd started to realise what it was. That the feeling that passed between them, so powerful there was no language to describe it... It was not mere friendship, but something born of and strengthened by it.

When doubts about the survival of the single currency surfaced in 2010, the financial markets started to view countries on Europe’s periphery, from Ireland to Greece, as over-indebted and uncompetitive. Bound by euro-fetters, members of the Eurozone could not regain competitiveness by devaluing their currencies. Instead, interest rates across the region diverged, with highly indebted countries, including Italy and Greece, suddenly forced to pay hefty risk premiums. Meanwhile German bond yields headed into negative territory. Deflation beckoned. Deleveraging was in order. To bring down labour costs, the PIIGS were going to have to embrace deep structural reforms. Unemployment in Spain climbed to Great Depression levels. Schumpeter’s forces of creative destruction were about to be unleashed, big time.