If you are investing for income or want to diversify your portfolio, you may want to consider investing in bond funds.

Bond funds can offer investors many of the same benefits of individual bonds, in addition to the advantages of diversification and professional management, according to “Bond Funds: The T. Rowe Price Investment Guide.”

Investing in bond funds is different from individual bonds. When you invest in a bond, you lend the issuer money. The issuer then pays you regular interest for the duration of the bond and repays the principal at the bond’s maturity date, provided the issuer does not default.

A bond fund is a mutual fund that comprises many bonds, with a professional fund manager who buys and sells securities to keep the fund true to its specific investment objective. A bond is a debt security, similar to an IOU. Bonds can serve as an attractive “middle ground” between stability (cash) investments and stocks, offering investors the potential for more meaningful returns than cash investments – with less overall volatility than stocks.

An appropriate asset mix is essential to your long-term investment success. Although diversification cannot protect against loss in a declining market or assure a profit, a diversified portfolio should be less volatile than one that’s invested in just stocks. That’s because the underperformance of one type of investment may be offset by the strong performance of another.

Investing in a combination of short, medium and long-term bond funds can help you pursue income while addressing the risk of rising interest rates. This is called laddering.

Remember that shorter-term bond funds carry a lower risk and return potential than longer-term funds. That’s why a diversified bond portfolio can provide a continuation of income, along with some protection from the impact of rising rates.

As an example, a laddered bond portfolio might consist of bonds with one, five and 10-year maturities. Investing in both shorter and longer maturities can help your strategy stay on track during both high and low interest-rate climates.

T. Rowe Price offers a variety of 100 percent “no-load” bond funds, meaning the investor does not pay sales charges or commissions.

Back in the old days, trading was handled by brokers who worked with their clients on ways to best improve their portfolios.

But since the advent of the Internet, and more specifically online trading, the days of needing someone else to make your investments are quickly receding into the past.

Online trading gives investors direct access to the market without having to rely on an intermediary to buy and sell stocks. By doing it yourself, not only are you forgoing a hefty brokerage fee, you’re saving something just as valuable when it comes to playing the market: time.

Sometimes, the window of investment opportunity is only open for a few moments. By trading online, you can capitalize on breaking news regarding a hot stock hours before traditional investors dial up a broker to make the deal.

Of course, just because you own a computer with an Internet connection doesn’t mean you’re ready to gamble your life savings away with online investing. Too many people have already fallen prey to the allure of what they perceive to be easy money.

That’s why it is important to learn the ropes before you begin investing online. At the very least, prospective do-it-yourself investors should do some research to learn as much as they can about Internet trading.

From there, they can begin exploring what kind of online trading they want to do: conventional or direct access.

Conventional trading usually requires traders to log on to a broker’s Web site and place an order. The broker then reviews the order and submits it to the market. This type of trading is much faster than traditional trading, though can still take several minutes to execute.

Online traders who know the value of time prefer direct access trading, which uses specialized software to send orders to the market for real-time execution in just seconds. And those who know the importance of reliable trading software use RushTrade.

At the heart of RushTrade technology is its proprietary “Direct Access Routing Technology,” otherwise known as DART.

RushTrade’s DART technology automatically and continuously scans the market for the best price, then routes your order in just a fraction of a second. Quicker, more reliable market scans mean you get the best market price available.

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