Bonds Get a Meme Moment as Reddit Crowd Drifts Over From Stocks

James McHugh isn’t afraid of a little risk. The trouble this year has been knowing where to find it. Crypto burned him. Meme stocks are stuck in the pits. So McHugh, a 36-year-old who works in Houston’s oil and gas industry, has been getting his fix in a corner of the market retail investors typically overlook — junk debt.

His target is Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., a company the WallStreetBets crowd cornered at the height of last year’s retail mania for stocks. He recently picked up a “gambling amount” of the struggling retailer’s bonds, some maturing as far off as 12 years from now. Those ...