1. Yes, you are right.
2. No, even the safest bonds can be manipulated by evil RMs into speculative financial instruments, eg. asking you to make $20 downpayment to own $100 of HDB bonds (safe) through financing.
3. Maybe, something is going to happen. I read a few articles that advocates a new thinking in bond investment (because something is going to happen) that encourages us to chase this mad bond rally. They are encouraging investors and speculators to dump long-term bonds for short-term ones because the chances of default is much lower for good blue chip short-term bonds:
- Investors will be assured of (higher odds of) redemption within 2-3 years. In the event market crashes, Investors can happily get par value back and switch to equities or properties.
- Speculators can lock-in the cost of financing these short-term bonds with fixed short-term (cheaper) loans to make easy $$$ too.
Therefore the answer: all of the above.