Question

Can you show me how to use Excel to do the calculations?

Sam Strother and Shawna Tibbs are vice presidents of Mutual of Seattle Insurance Company and co-directors of the company’s pension fund management division. An important new client, the North-Western Municipal Alliance, has requested that Mutual of Seattle present an investment seminar to the mayors of the represented cities, and Strother and Tibbs, who will make the actual presentation, have asked you to help them by answering the following questions.

1. What are the key features of a bond?

2. What are call provisions and sinking fund provisions? Do these provisions make bonds more or less risky?

3. How does one determine the value of any asset whose value is based on expected future cash flows?

4. How is the value of a bond determined? What is the value of a 10-year, $1,000 par value bond with a 10% annual coupon if its required rate of return is 10%?

5. 1. What would be the value of the bond described in Part d if, just after it had been issued, the expected inflation rate rose by 3 percentage points, causing investors to require a 13% return? Would we now have a discount or a premium bond?

   2. What would happen to the bond’s value if inflation fell and declined to 7%? Would we now have a premium or a discount bond?

   3. What would happen to the value of the 10-year bond over time if the required rate of return remained at 13%? If it remained at 7%? (Hint: With a financial calculator, enter PMT, I/YR, FV, and N, and then change N to see what happens to the PV as the bond approaches maturity.)

6. 1. What is the yield to maturity on a 10-year, 9% annual coupon, $1,000 par value bond that sells for $887.00? That sells for $1,134.20? What does the fact that a bond sells at a discount or at a premium tell you about the relationship between and the bond’s coupon rate?

   2. What are the total return, the current yield, and the capital gains yield for the discount bond? (Assume the bond is held to maturity and the company does not default on the bond.)

Answer 1

Key Features of a bond are,

Coupon rate, duration, Par value, YTM

A call provision is a clause in a bond's indenture granting the issuer the right to call, or buy back, all or part of an issue prior to the maturity date.

In bonds with sinking find provision, a fund or account is set up into which an issuer deposits money on a regular basis to repay the bond when it matures

Call provision creates a risk of prepayment, and sinking fund provision makes the bond less risky

Based on the concept of Present value of future cash flows, with a discount rate as the required rate of return.

Value of the bond is determined using the present value concept. Since the coupon rate and the required rate of return are the same, so the bond trades at its par value which is 1000

With Par Value 1000, no of years as 10, Coupon rate 10% and required rate 13%, the Present value is calculated as follows,

PMT 10, No of Years 10, I = 13%, FV = 1000, PV =? PV = 837.21 (bond trades at discount)

When I = 7%, PV = 1210.7 (Bond trades at premium)