What Are the Pros and Cons of Stocks vs Bonds

What Are the Pros and Cons of Stocks vs Bonds

In this video, Thomas Brock compares stocks and bonds, explaining that while stocks offer growth potential and dividends with higher volatility, bonds provide more stability but carry risks such as credit, interest rate, inflation, and liquidity risk.
Video Transcript

Stocks are a growth oriented investment.

They offer you the potential to earn a dividend from the company, as well as participate in the growth of that company and generate some price appreciation on your investment.

However, they're highly volatile, especially over the short term.

They're not ideal for anybody that has less than a five year investing horizon. Bonds, on the other hand, are relatively stable, much more stable than stocks.

However, they come with their own unique risks.

Credit risk, which is the risk of not being paid back.

Interest rate risk, which varies with the length of the bond. The longer the term, the more risk you face there. Inflation risk goes hand in hand with interest rate risk.

And you also might have a situation where you have liquidity risk with a bond. They don't trade as easily as stocks on average.