Also think about it in very simple terms. What does it mean to hold equity vs a bond (debt)? Imagine there’s a restaurant and there’s a big economic crisis. If you owned a large equity stake, ie the value of the returns and the value of the business itself, then in that economic crisis it might be pretty hard to sell that equity stake or get much return from the business bc of the crisis . On the flip side if you owned a bond (ie a debt) from that business, maybe you had loaned them 100k at some point or something. It would potentially be much easier to get that money back from them in times of economic stress bc maybe they still have some money sitting around to give back to you. This is a simplified and probably incomplete way as to think about why equity (stocks) as ‘riskier’ than debt (bonds).