How to Buy Bonds Online. Tips on How to Buy a Bond
In the age of the Internet, you can conduct almost any possible type of financial transaction online.
This includes purchasing bonds. It is actually quite easy to buy bonds online. Even a beginner in the world of online finance shouldn’t have too much difficulty in buying bonds over the Internet. 
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Open a Discount Brokerage Account
This is one of the most cost effective ways to buy bonds online. There are online brokerages that are operated as independent businesses.
Others are run as offshoots of banks or standard brokerages. In all cases, these allow you to open an online account and conduct self-directed investing.
Discount brokerages have huge numbers of bonds that customers can buy, although the exact selection depends on the individual brokerage.
Most, though, will have a wide variety of government and corporate bonds available for sale. This includes lots of government bonds from other nations.
Discount brokerages also have another way for your to buy bonds online.
Most will have several bond mutual funds that you can select in order to diversify your bond holdings by investing in a single fund. This is also a good option for a beginning investor who might not know a lot about how to choose bonds on their own.
Direct from the Government
You can also buy bonds directly from the U.S. Treasury by using its online purchasing portal. In fact, when it comes to certain categories of U.S. bonds, you can now only buy bonds online. The website that you need to visit is www.treasurydirect.gov.
The government now sells all of its bonds through this website. You can also purchase Treasury bills and other financial products sold by the U.S. Treasury. You have to set up an account, but there are a number of tutorials on the website that walk you through every step of the process. If you’re interested in the very stable investments presented by U.S. savings bonds, the Treasury Direct website is worth looking into.
Bond Funds
Through your discount brokerage account, full-service broker or bank with investing account options, you also have the ability to purchase funds that hold bonds rather than buying individual bonds.
These types of companies all have portals that let you buy bonds online in the form of bond mutual funds or ETFs.
These are collections of bonds that are bundled together in one investment product.
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By buying shares in the mutual fund or ETF, you are, in effect, buying small pieces of many different bonds, which helps diversify your investment and protect your principal.
Bond funds can also be used to generate income, as certain bond funds are structured to provide income to their investors.
Conclusion
Learning to buy bonds online isn’t hard.
You just need to sign up for an account at a brokerage website or with Treasury Direct and then you can get started.
However, be sure to do your research before you buy bonds online.
The ease with which you can buy products online sometimes leads people into making snap decisions. Instead, you should take your time and do your research on every financial product you purchase, including any bonds you buy on the Internet.
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