Four Types of Credit Market Instruments

In terms of the timing of their payments, there are four basic types of credit market
instruments.
1. A simple loan, which we have already discussed, in which the lender provides
the borrower with an amount of funds, which must be repaid to the lender at the
maturity date along with an additional payment for the interest. Many money market
instruments are of this type: for example, commercial loans to businesses.
2. A fixed-payment loan (which is also called a fully amortized loan) in which the
lender provides the borrower with an amount of funds, which must be repaid by making
the same payment every period (such as a month), consisting of part of the principal
and interest for a set number of years. For example, if you borrowed $1,000, a
fixed-payment loan might require you to pay $126 every year for 25 years. Installment
loans (such as auto loans) and mortgages are frequently of the fixed-payment type.
3. A coupon bond pays the owner of the bond a fixed interest payment (coupon
payment) every year until the maturity date, when a specified final amount (face
value or par value) is repaid. The coupon payment is so named because the bondholder
used to obtain payment by clipping a coupon off the bond and sending it to
the bond issuer, who then sent the payment to the holder. Nowadays, it is no longer
necessary to send in coupons to receive these payments. A coupon bond with $1,000
face value, for example, might pay you a coupon payment of $100 per year for ten
years, and at the maturity date repay you the face value amount of $1,000. (The face
value of a bond is usually in $1,000 increments.)
A coupon bond is identified by three pieces of information. First is the corporation
or government agency that issues the bond. Second is the maturity date of the bond. Third is the bond’s coupon rate, the dollar amount of the yearly coupon payment
expressed as a percentage of the face value of the bond. In our example, the
coupon bond has a yearly coupon payment of $100 and a face value of $1,000. The
coupon rate is then $100/$1,000  0.10, or 10%. Capital market instruments such
as U.S. Treasury bonds and notes and corporate bonds are examples of coupon bonds.
4. A discount bond (also called a zero-coupon bond) is bought at a price below
its face value (at a discount), and the face value is repaid at the maturity date. Unlike
a coupon bond, a discount bond does not make any interest payments; it just pays off
the face value. For example, a discount bond with a face value of $1,000 might be
bought for $900; in a year’s time the owner would be repaid the face value of $1,000.
U.S. Treasury bills, U.S. savings bonds, and long-term zero-coupon bonds are examples
of discount bonds.
These four types of instruments require payments at different times: Simple loans
and discount bonds make payment only at their maturity dates, whereas fixed-payment
loans and coupon bonds have payments periodically until maturity. How would you
decide which of these instruments provides you with more income? They all seem so
different because they make payments at different times. To solve this problem, we use
the concept of present value, explained earlier, to provide us with a procedure for
measuring interest rates on these different types of instruments.