Question

The University of California has two bonds outstanding. Both issues have the same credit rating, a face value of $1,000 and a coupon rate of 4%. Coupons are paid twice a year. Bond A matures in 1 year, while bond B matures in 30 years.

The market interest rate for similar bonds is 8%.

What is the price of bond B?

Now assume that yields increase to 11%. What is the price of bond A?

What is now the price of bond B?

Answer 1

PV(rate, nper, pmt, [fv])

The PV function syntax has the following arguments:

• Rate    Required. The interest rate per period. For example, if you obtain an automobile loan at a 10 percent annual interest rate and make monthly payments, your interest rate per month is 10%/12, or 0.83%. You would enter 10%/12, or 0.83%, or 0.0083, into the formula as the rate.

• Nper    Required. The total number of payment periods in an annuity. For example, if you get a four-year car loan and make monthly payments, your loan has 4*12 (or 48) periods. You would enter 48 into the formula for nper.

• Pmt    Required. The payment made each period and cannot change over the life of the annuity. Typically, pmt includes principal and interest but no other fees or taxes. For example, the monthly payments on a $10,000, four-year car loan at 12 percent are $263.33. You would enter -263.33 into the formula as the pmt. If pmt is omitted, you must include the fv argument.

• Fv    Optional. The future value, or a cash balance you want to attain after the last payment is made. If fv is omitted, it is assumed to be 0 (the future value of a loan, for example, is 0). For example, if you want to save $50,000 to pay for a special project in 18 years, then $50,000 is the future value. You could then make a conservative guess at an interest rate and determine how much you must save each month. If fv is omitted, you must include the pmt argument.

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