The Simple: You buy a bond that comes due in 10 years. It has a coupon of 7%. But instead of paying par value of a grand, you've bought it at $800. So over the course of 10 years, you'll amortize the appreciation of that bond from 800 bucks to a grand at the pace of 20 bucks a year....assuming it's not distressed or in trouble in some other way.
And oh, by the way, you'll pay ordinary income tax each year on that 20 bucks of gain. Sorry. Bonds are a tough way to get wealthy. (Unless you're E.L. James, but that's a different type of bonds.)
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Finance: What is Bond Amortization?7 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is bond amortization? okay fancy term easy
concept the basic idea is that you have to "revalue" what a bond is
actually worth each period which usually means twice a year because bonds pay [Monthly calendar appears]
interest on the you know semester system yeah twice a year so let's say you've
paid seven hundred bucks for a bond with a 5% coupon which comes due for a
thousand bucks in ten years over that time you'll have received two things the
5% per year interest from the bond in cash paid along the way and the [5% interest per year appears]
appreciation of the 700 bucks to become the thousand dollar par value at which
point it will eventually pay back its principal so to amortize the $300 of
appreciation of that bond over ten years while you could attribute 30 bucks a
year in appreciation each year such that after we'll say three and a half years
you'd hold the bond as having appreciated 3.5 times 30 bucks or $105 [Straight line appreciation formula appears]
in appreciation making the bond worth at that point in time eight hundred five
dollars oh yeah fancy but also pretty easy
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