There are many misconceptions around the difference between a bond and a bond fund. This article will serve to outline the key differences between both instruments, and what to look out for when investing in each security.

By definition, a bond is a debt obligation issued by entities, such as corporations or governments. When an investor purchases an individual bond, s/he is essentially lending his/her money to the issuer of the bond for a pre-defined period of time. In exchange for this, the bond issuer will pay the investor/bondholder interest till the maturity/expiration of the bond. On this date, the bond issuer will also reimburse the investor with the original investment or loan amount (known as the bond principal), assuming no default has occurred.

Bond funds are mutual funds (collective investment schemes) that invest directly in bonds, as the manager of such funds pool investor’s monies into one pot. In simple terms, a bond fund can be viewed as a basket of a number of bonds (lots of them, varying from 20 to over a hundred) within one bond portfolio. The types of bonds which the bond fund manager can invest in will depend on the objective of the said bond fund. So for example, a Malta Government bond fund will be primarily composed of Malta Government Stocks whilst an International Bond Fund could have an array of government and corporate bonds, investment grade and high yield bonds, of varying maturities. In the case of bond funds, Investment Managers are governed by a pre-determined set of investment rules, guidelines and parameters within which the underlying investments must conform to, as the manager is duty bound to abide to such guidelines by law.

In the case of individual bonds, the traditional investor will typically hold the assets until maturity and throughout the life of the bond will receive interest, usually on an annual or a semi-annual basis. In the interim, the price of the bond will be subject to market forces and hence fluctuate while being held by the investor. However, the investor can receive 100% of his or her initial investment on maturity. This means that there is no loss of principal, if the investor holds the bond till maturity, assuming that the issuer of the bond honours its financial obligations and does not default on the payment of the principal.

The same cannot be said for mutual funds, and this applies to all funds and not simply bond funds. With a bond fund, the investor has a share (in the form of units) of the interest being generated (and subsequently paid out) by the underlying bonds held within that bond fund. What is important to grasp however is the concept that funds are not valued by a price but what is known as a net asset value (NAV) of the underlying holdings in the portfolio. Therefore, if interest rates are rising and subsequently bond prices are falling, the bond fund could be exposed and lose some of its principal investment (as the NAV of the fund can decline), but on the flipside can benefit from an increase in the price of bonds in a declining yield scenario. If a bondholder holds his/her investment till maturity, the individual bond investor will not receive more than the principal investment (unless they sell their bond before maturity at a higher price than they purchased it).

Without going into the technicality of things, there are several pros and cons of investing in direct bonds vs in a bond fund. Investors opting to invest in direct bonds have the onus of monitoring the creditworthiness of the underlying bond issuer and assess from time-to-time whether the bond issuer’s financial profile is improving or deteriorating, quite an arduous task if not faced with the necessary skills set. Investment managers are equipped with the right tools to be able to adequately scrutinise company (issuer) balance sheets, devise interest rate forecasts, and identify any mispricing in the bond market. All these serve to help fund managers position and align the assets within a fund (duration and allocation) with his/her strategy and market outlook, something which an individual investor might not be in a position to achieve without the proper guidance.