People tend to categorize investing in the stock market as being high-risk. They also refer to bonds as safe investments.

But how accurate is this? Are bonds truly one of the safest investment vehicles? The editors at SmartMoney magazine aren’t so sure.

In early January, SmartMoney ran an intriguing story looking at the rush investors have made to sink their dollars in municipal and corporate bonds. These investors are pouring their money in bonds for one reason: They’re looking for investments that are safe and steady.

Thing is, not all bond funds have performed well for these investors, SmartMoney wrote. Many bonds are yielding less than half of the returns they were offering just last summer, according to the story.

This comes as shocking news to many investors. We’ve all been conditioned to view bonds as safe investments. Sure, they may be boring, with returns that seldom soar as high as do the ones provided by the best stocks. But bonds are steady, we’ve been told.

But bonds are like most investments: You can lose money on them.

And that’s been happening a bit more these days. The writers at SmartMoney compare it with real estate in the 2000s and tech funds in the 1990s. These investment vehicles, too, were hot, with investors rushing to put their money in them. Then they both crashed, erasing a lot of paper fortunes as they did so.

There hasn’t been a bond crash. But SmartMoney writes that there is certainly a bit of a bond slowdown going on now.

It’s not that bonds are bad investments. It’s just that they bring with them the real potential for risk. This means that investors need to do as much research before investing in bonds as they do when they put their money in the stock market.

This is where the advice of a trusted financial advisor comes into play. A financial partner can help you study the bond markets and find the investment vehicles that work best for you. There’s no reason why your portfolio shouldn’t include some bond investments. But it should also include other vehicles, such as stocks. The key to a successful investment portfolio still lies in diversifying your investment dollars.

Next time you read about an investment vehicle that comes with no risk, don’t believe the hype. Even those investment vehicles that promise slow, somewhat boring returns, come with their own risks.