Author William D. Cohan warns savvy investors to keep a sharp eye on the soaring domestic debt market, which he says can be a much more accurate reflection of the nation’s economic health than the stock market.

Cohan explains in an opinion piece for the New York Times that the debt market (at around $41 trillion for the bond market alone) is “broadcasting a dangerous message: Investors, desperate for debt instruments that pay high interest, have been overpaying for riskier and riskier obligations.”

University endowments, pension funds, mutual funds and hedge funds “have been pouring money into the bond market with little concern that bonds can be every bit as dangerous to own as stocks,” wrote Cohan, a former investment banker and the author of four books about Wall Street.

(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).

• John Mauldin: Another Debt Crisis Is Brewing
• FT: Investors Downplay US Corporate Debt Binge Risks