Hello Reader,

Thank you for sending in your responses to my last email—I’m excited by the thoughtful comments and questions I’ve been getting.

Taking a gauge of the emails I’ve gotten over the last couple of months, the conclusion is that bonds are a bit confusing and complex.

Sample comments…

• “Jared, I need an explanation Joe Six-Pack can grasp…”
• “Bonds are far more opaque than stocks, and I don’t trust the rating agencies anymore…”
• “Stocks are often in the news. Where do I get actionable investing ideas for bonds?”
• “They are dang confusing… How do I figure out what types to invest in?”

No argument here. I get it. Stocks are allegedly easy to understand. Stocks go up, stocks go down.

But actually, once you understand them, bonds make a lot more sense. Sure, there’s complexity involved, and sure, most of the books on the subject are boring.

But once you understand bonds, you truly get them (and as I keep saying, if you want to understand how the world works, you need to understand bonds.)

Here’s one more comment I got…

“Bonds are cloaked. They are assigned to the subset of research: unsexy, institutional fixed-income departments serving the same amongst institutional investors. I can find reams of analyst research reports for equities any way you want to slice them. Not so for bonds. Same goes for books. And precious little explanation of the functional operation of trading them. The Street does not make it easy to invest in them. It thus blocks the individual investor (me) from formulating a balanced portfolio.”

I’m pretty sure there isn’t a Wall Street conspiracy going on, but I agree that there is some opacity around bonds.

Well, I’m here to strike a match to it. I’ve been dropping hints about this for a while, but today I can finally announce (drum roll please)…

The Bond Masterclass

I have been working on a complete education course on bonds, designed to help you become a successful bond investor, no matter where you’re starting from.

I’ve been perfecting it for several months, but really, I’ve been working on it for much longer than that. The Masterclass takes my two decades of experience with bonds, and my years of teaching bonds to MBA students, and distils them into a comprehensive, easy-to-understand guide.

It’s also based on what you’ve asked for over the last couple of months.

• Hundreds of you asked me to “just start with Bonds 101”… the Bond Masterclass starts from ground zero, so you won’t be out of your depth if you’ve never touched a bond before.
• Hundreds of you asked me to explain more complex concepts… the Bond Masterclass covers everything from the yield curve to duration to convexity, and it does so in a clear, direct way that doesn’t take up too much of your time.
• Hundreds of you said you wanted to learn about bonds but can’t commit to slogging through a 500-page book… the Bond Masterclass comes with key takeaways and summaries, so you can quickly get the bigger picture…
• Plenty of you have said before that you’re visual learners, so I’ve got The Bond Masterclass Videos to explain some of the tougher concepts…
• Hundreds of you asked what bonds I would put in a portfolio… I’ve set up two bond portfolios just for you (one tailored to incomes below $300,000, one tailored to incomes above $300,000).

This is a complete education on bonds. It’s unlike anything else out there. I’m extremely proud of it!

And I’m almost ready to lift the curtain… please look out for an email with more details tomorrow.

One more thing. With the Masterclass, you’ll learn what it would normally take a college semester to learn.

But because I want it to be accessible to as many people as possible, the Masterclass won’t cost what a college semester costs. Not even close.

Jared Dillian