Chap 10 Flashcards
Refunding provision:
prohibits the premature retirement of an issue from proceeds of a lower-coupon bond.
PIK bond
an unusual type of junk bond
PIK stands for “payment in kind”
Rather than paying the bond’s coupon in cash, the issuer can make annual interest payments in the form of additional debt, usually for five or six years, before making interest payments in real money.
Junior bonds:
Unsecured debt, backed only by the promise of the issuer to pay interest and principal on a timely basis.
Conversion privilege
key element of a convertible that stipulates the conditions and specific nature of the conversion feature.
Forced conversion:
while the bondholder has the right to convert the bond at any time, more often than not, the issuing firm initiates the conversion by calling the bonds.
Call price
the bond’s par value plus the call premium.
Purchasing Power Risk
the chance that bond yields will lag behind inflation rates. Inflation erodes the purchasing power of money.
–Corporate and government bond rates tend to move :
together, but corporate bond rates are higher.
Corporate bonds are more risky and thus require a higher rate to compensate for this risk.
Difference between the corporate and government bond rates is called the yield spread, or credit spread.
Treasury bonds: (time)
maturity of 30-years
Coupon rate
the interest payment that the bond issuer makes as a percentage of the bond’s par value
Agency bonds:
debt securities issued by various agencies and organizations of the government
High quality securities with almost no risk of default.
Usually provide yields that are slightly above the market rates for Treasuries
Business/Financial Risk
the risk that the issuer of the bond will default on interest or principal payments
Mortgage bonds
are secured by real estate.
Debenture
a bond that is totally unsecured, meaning there is no collateral backing up the obligation.
What Ratings Mean
Ratings are tied to bond yields: the higher the rating the lower the yield.
A bond’s rating has an impact on how sensitive its price is to interest rate movements as well as to changes in the company’s financial performance.
Bond ratings serve to relieve individual investors of the time and cost of a thorough credit analysis of their own, but keep in mind:
Bond ratings only measure an issue’s default risk, which is not related at all to an issue’s exposure to interest rate risk.
Ratings agencies do make mistakes.
Eurodollar bonds
issued and traded outside of the U.S. and are not registered with the SEC.
Denominated in U.S. dollars
Eurodollar market primarily aimed at institutional investors and dominated by foreign-based investors.
Call Risk
risk that a bond will be “called” (retired) before its scheduled maturity date.
equity kicker
the right to convert these bonds into shares of the company’s common stock
Liquidity Risk
the risk that a bond will be difficult to sell at a reasonable price.
Bond Interest and Principal
Coupon
Principal (par value; face value)
Coupon rate
Current Yield
Conversion period
the time period during which a convertible issue can be converted.
Bond rating agencies:
institutions that perform extensive financial analysis on companies issuing bonds to assess the credit risk associated with a particular bond issue.
Examples: Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, Fitch
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)
first issued in 1997, these securities offer investors the opportunity to stay ahead of inflation by periodically adjusting their returns for any inflation that has occurred.
Payback period(conversion)
a measure of the length of time it will take to recover the conversion premium from the extra interest income earned on the convertible.
Investment-grade bonds
bonds receiving one of the top four ratings, indicating financially strong, well-run companies.
Mortgage-backed bond:
a debt issue that is secured by a pool of residential mortgages.
Global View of the Bond Market
Foreign bonds have caught on with investors because of their high yields and attractive returns.
Big risk with foreign bonds has to do with the impact that currency fluctuations can have on returns in U.S. dollars.
The U.S. has the world’s biggest bond market, followed by Japan, China, and several EU countries (Germany, Italy, France), together accounting for greater than 90% of the world bond market.
Non-callable
issuer is prohibited from retiring the bond prior to maturity.
types of risk (bonds)
Interest Rate Risk
Purchasing Power Risk
Business/Financial Risk
Liquidity Risk
Call Risk
Convertible bonds:
securities originally issued as bonds (or even preferred stock) by a corporation and containing a provision that gives investors the option to convert their bonds into shares of the issuing firm’s stock.
Convertibles are hybrid securities because they contain attributes of both debt and equity.
They should be viewed primarily as a form of equity.
- Convertibles as Investment Outlets
- Sources of Value
- Measuring the Value of a Convertible
Types of municipal bonds
General obligation bonds
Revenue bonds
Zero-coupon bonds
do not pay interest.
Sold at a discount from their par values.
Increase in value over time at a compound rate of return; At maturity, the difference in value from their initial cost represents the bond’s return.
Subject to tremendous price volatility as interest rates fluctuate.
Interest must be reported as it is accrued for tax purposes, even though no interest is actually received.
Conversion price:
the stated value per share at which the common stock will be delivered to the investor in exchange for the convertible issue.