Marginal Lender

Categories: Bonds, Credit

You don't want to have to deal with a marginal lender. Think: loan shark. They're only a source of last result. They get called when everything else...every other loan vehicle...has failed. And these marginal lenders will ask for all kinds of legal "hooks."

Got a co-signer or three? Can we take your left lung if you don't make a payment? Will you sign away the rights to your life story after that lung is removed, paying for that car you just had to have?

Yeah, we didn't think so. Keyword: Uber.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What are High Yield/Junk Bonds?19 Views

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finance a la shmoop. what are high-yield or junk bonds? alright well here are low

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yield bonds, you know Apple Microsoft you know, safe secure sleep [charts]

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like a baby even for Chicken Little those kind of bonds. the sky is not

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falling. all right well here are high-yield bonds Sears you know Toys R

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Us aren't they bankrupt already best buy well someday bankrupt ,yeah not safe not

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secure, the sky among other things like credit ratings is in fact falling. well [definitions on screen]

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why do high-yield bonds yield a lot that is they pay a lot of interest to

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investors why do they do that answer because they have to. right but

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why why do they have to? well because the bonds are risky either the business is

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in danger of dying, or the business has borrowed so much money that it's in [ best buy pictured]

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danger of not being able to pay back the loans. that is their operating profit is

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just barely enough to pay the interest costs on all the loans they've borrowed

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so the risk of default is high and investors demand very high interest for

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taking on the risk of having to go through a potential bankruptcy. the term

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junk was coined in the 1980s when the now-defunct investment bank Drexel [100 dollar bill]

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Burnham Lambert sold boatloads of bonds which had dubious creditworthiness in

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weak backing and so the boatloads of bonds sank and ended up as basically

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junk. and not the Chinese junk that actually sales, a different kind of junk.

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anyway unlike your fancy triple-a bonds which you can see here on this lovely [ boat sails on a lake]

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table ,those junk bonds were riskier than us women in shark-infested waters with a

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bloody nose. so what's the best way to encourage people to do risky possibly

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dangerous things ?well pay them a lot of money. so that's why junk bonds yield

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such killer returns for investors because otherwise well these things [two people frown in front of bond store]

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would never leave the shelf.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)