Amid renewed interest, startups are changing how bonds are traded

Bonds are having a “meme moment” on Reddit, Bloomberg reported.

A caveat first: The trend is not on par with WallStreetBets and its meme stock frenzy. The r/bonds subreddit forum only has some 8,000 members not 13 million. But the fact that laypeople are discussing bonds is still a noteworthy development for an asset class that never raised much enthusiasm from retail investors — or from anyone, to be honest.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

At their core, bonds are IOUs from either governments or companies — except that these IOUs can be traded (the BBC has a good Econ 101 explainer on the topic.) But to keep things simple, let’s say bonds are debt. And debt is boring, right?

Well, to most people, making money is never boring. When inflation rates are high and stock markets are volatile, this means looking for new sources of yield and diversification. We already looked into how this created tailwinds from alternative assets, such as passion investments.

Bonds aren’t exactly alts — the once-golden 60/40 portfolio rule used to recommend owning 60% of stocks and 40% of bonds. But it is fair to say that fixed-income offerings such as bonds are enjoying renewed interest, with Goldman Sachs wondering earlier this month if it was “time to switch from stocks to bonds.”