Topics in this course
Fixed-income analysis begins with the cash-flow contract: price, yield, duration, credit, maturity, bond structure, cash management, and implementation. The course connects instruments with specific portfolio roles.
Bond mechanics: price, yield, duration, credit, and maturity
Understand how bond cash flows, price, yield, duration, maturity, credit quality, and reinvestment interact before comparing fixed-income investments.
- Bond basics
- Bond anatomy: know what the contract promises
- Bond quotation: clean price, dirty price, and accrued interest
- Price and yield move in opposite directions
- + 6 more sections
Bond types and structures: know what can change the payoff
Compare government, corporate, municipal, agency, callable, floating-rate, inflation-linked, and other bonds by issuer risk, cash flows, seniority, optionality, and tax context.
- Major fixed-income categories
- Treasury securities can be bought at auction or in the secondary market
- Municipal bonds require both tax and credit analysis
- Mortgage-backed bonds can shorten when rates fall and lengthen when rates rise
- + 2 more sections
Cash and fixed-income implementation: match liquidity to the job
Use cash, money market instruments, CDs, Treasury securities, bonds, and ladders according to liquidity needs, maturity, reinvestment risk, credit risk, and execution costs.
- Cash management vehicles are not interchangeable
- Bank deposits, brokered CDs, Treasury bills, and money market funds are different instruments
- A fixed-income buying process
- Buying an individual bond requires reading the quote and the contract together
- + 4 more sections
Read the guides in order for a complete path.
All 9 guides in this category appear below in the recommended sequence; any guide can also be opened directly from navigation or search.