Bonds.yahoo.com – up-to-date bond price, yield, ratings, and value. Also included is a bond calculator that enables one to determine the price of a bond based on market factors on a given day.
Mergent Bond Record – Updated monthly. It gives current prices, yields, values, and ratings. Available on Business Table 1A. call number: HG4915 .S655
Standard&Poor’s Bond Guide – Updated monthly. It gives prices, yields, ratings, debt, value, and other financial data. Available on Business Table 1A. call number: HG4961 .M7 [pt. 10]
CUSIP – Every security, including bonds, are assigned a CUSIP number. They serve as an easy identifier for a bond You may find CUSIP numbers in Mergent Bond Record or at Bondpage.com
Title of the Bond – Name of the organization (company, agency, or municipality), together with Coupon (interest rate) and date of issue and date of maturity.
Coupon – Each bond within an organization has a different coupon (interest rate).
Dates – Bonds within an organization will have different maturity dates and different dates of issue.
We do not subscribe to any source that provides historical bond prices on a daily basis. Mergent Bond Record and Standard and Poor Bond Guide provide monthly historical data by checking older issues. The Wall Street Journal DOES NOT list bond prices daily for all bonds, just a few “representative” bonds.
The best method to calculate a bond price on a particular day is to use the Yahoo! Bond Calculator at bonds.yahoo.com. If you know the bond’s Yield to maturity, face value, and coupon rate (all available on bonds.yahoo.com, Mergent Bond Record, and Standard&Poor’s Bond Guide) along with the day’s market rate, which can be found in the Wall Street Journal and other basic financial sources, you can enter those variables into the bond calculator and find the bond price for that day.
Prepared
by Robert Sage, rsage@fullerton.edu
An administrative page of the Paulina June & George Pollak Library at
California State University, Fullerton.
(c)2007
California State University, Fullerton. All rights reserved.
Last Updated: 18 March 2005.