Monday, October 10, 2011

BBC News - How do bonds work?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10093437
  • Bonds have a face value (usually what it is sold for initially), however they also have a market value which fluctuates.
  • yield.
  • is the rate of interest it pays, expressed as a percentage of its market value.
  • if you bought a £100m bond with a 5% coupon, your yield would be 5%
  • yield of a bond is inversely related to its current price - meaning that if the price of a bond falls, its yield goes up.
  • if our bond with a face value of £100m fell to a market price of £90m, the yield would rise to 5.55% (5/90 x 100).
  • If the price of our bond rose to £110m then the yield would fall to 4.54%. (5/110 x 100).
  • The higher the yield of a bond, the riskier it is seen to be and the greater the chance that a company or government which issued it may not be able to repay the money.

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