Even Yield Hogs Should Avoid Junk Bonds

It’s been a while since I last looked at junk-bond yields so I was flabbergasted at one point last week when I checked FRED, the research arm of the Federal Reserve. The yield on the “Bank of America Merrill Lynch US High Yield Effective Yield” was down to just a tad above 6%. I get that interest rates are low. Still, there has to be some point at which we just say “No,” especially since big-name ETF providers feature such temptations as SPDR Barclays High Yield Bonds ($JNK) and iShare...