home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- A Bond Portfolio Worksheet
- By Fred Shipley, Ph.D.
- Computerized Investing, January/February 1989
-
- To effectively manage a bond portfolio an investor must keep track of the
- current return, any current or anticipated changes in value and the riskiness
- of the portfolio. In this article we provide a template for performing these
- calculations and updating portfolio values over time.
-
- For an investor considering the management or performance evaluation of a bond
- portfolio, one of the first aspects that must be analyzed is the current income
- the portfolio provides. Since most investors are, and should be, looking to
- the bond part of their portfolio to provide a steady income stream, it is
- important to know the yield this portfolio provides. As with any individual
- bond, we want to know both the current yield and the yield to maturity.
-
- Certainly an investor also needs to know the change in the value of his or her
- portfolio over time. In our simple spreadsheet, we allow you to determine that
- change from some initial value--either your initial cost, or as of some
- specified past date. By updating the spreadsheet on a regular basis you can
- track your portfolio's performance over time.
-
- Finally, for planning and risk management purposes, an investor must know the
- effect of changes in interest rates on portfolio values. The spreadsheet
- includes a summary indication of those effects, a means of modeling the effects
- of changes in market rates, and a screen for individually changing assessments
- of yields on each individual bond in the portfolio.
-
- Bond Portfolio Summary Screen
-
- Figure 1 shows the overall portfolio summary. It is calculated from data on
- each individual bond's value and cost, their coupon rates and maturities. As a
- result of this effort, you get the portfolio's change in value over cost, its
- current income yield and approximate yield to maturity, the portfolio duration,
- and an estimate of the effect on value for a 1% change in interest rates.
- Finally, by entering new estimates of market rates for each bond you hold, the
- program will calculate the new market value, yield to maturity and the
- percentage change in portfolio value that would result from these interest rate
- changes. Alternatively, you can enter a summary overall market yield for the
- entire portfolio and get the same information.
-
- Figure 1
- Bond Portfolio Management Worksheet
-
- A B C D E
- 1 Current Portfolio Holdings -- Summary Information
- 2
- 3 Day Month Year
- 4 Current Date: 26 10 1988
- 5
- 6 Initial Portfolio Cost: $46,963.75
- 7 Current Portfolio Market Value: $47,801.25
- 8 Change in Value Since Purchase: $837.50
- 9 =========
- 10 Current Portfolio Yield: 8.206%
- 11 Approximate Portfolio YTM: 9.925%
- 12 Portfolio Duration (years): 6.80
- 13 Effect of 1% Increase in Yield: -6.19%
- 14
- 15 Effects of Revised Yield Assumptions
- 16 New Estimated Portfolio YTM: 10.171%
- 17 New Portfolio Value: $46,954.86
- 18 %age Change in Portfolio Value: -1.77%
- 19 Change in Value Since Purchase: ($8.89)
- 20 TYPE PgDn to Enter Data =========
-
- Remember that current yield only relates the income from a bond to its current
- price. It does not consider the effects of value appreciation or decline over
- time as a result of decreasing maturity. This yield measure does not
- adequately reflect the true return on your portfolio. What it does indicate is
- the current return per dollar of current market value. The yield to maturity
- is a better measure of total return, but there are several important
- assumptions embedded in that concept.
-
- First, there is the obvious assumption that you actually hold the bond until
- maturity. That may not be too bad a presumption. Second, we assume that any
- cash flows the portfolio generates (periodic interest income) are reinvested at
- the yield to maturity. This may be stretching things. Many investors consume
- the current interest payments. The effect of spending these cash flows is to
- reduce your realized rate of return. Third, the spreadsheet only calculates
- the approximate yield to maturity. We have done this simply to reduce the size
- of the program. To calculate the true yield, you would have to create a column
- (or row) of cash flows for each individual bond. For many investors this would
- result in an unwieldy mess. For the bonds used to illustrate the spreadsheet
- the true yield to maturity is 9.955%, while the approximate yield to maturity
- is 9.925%, a difference of 3 basis points (3/100s of 1%).
-
- Using Duration in Portfolio Management
-
- To estimate the effect of changing interest rates on the value of the
- portfolio, we calculate the average portfolio duration. Duration is a
- present-value-weighted-average time to maturity and is related to the price
- sensitivity of a bond or bond portfolio. The portfolio duration is just the
- weighted average of the duration of each individual bond. You must weight each
- bond's duration by its percentage composition in your portfolio. This
- percentage is based on current market values. For any bond, its percentage
- composition (Wb) of the portfolio is:
-
- Market Value of Holdings of Bond b
- Wb = --------------------------------------
- Total Market Value of Portfolio
-
- These percentages are calculated in the spreadsheet. If you look at Figures 2
- and 3, you will see that calculation. For example, the IBM 10.25s of 1995 have
- a value of $21,075.00 and the total value of the portfolio is $47,801.25 so the
- IBM bonds are 44% of the portfolio.
-
-
- Figure 2
- Data Input Section
-
- A B C D E F G
- 22 Data Input Section -- Enter Individual Bond Information
- 23
- 24 Years Initial Units
- 25 Maturity to Cost Owned
- 26 Issuer Rating Coupon Date Maturity (% of Face) ($000s)
- 27 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- 28 A T & T AA 7.000% 02/15/2001 12.31 79.000 5
- 29 A T & T AA 8.625% 04/01/2026 37.43 93.500 10
- 30 Chrysler BBB 12.000% 11/15/2015 104.625 3
- 31 DuPont AA 6.000% 12/01/2001 78.000 5
- 32 I.B.M. AAA 10.250% 10/15/95 102.875 20
- 33 Turner Broadcasting B 0.000% 03/15/92 60.500 10
- 34 ---------------------------------------------------
- 35 Portfolio Totals: $46,963.75
- 36 Weighted Average Maturity: 05/30/2003
- 37 Number of Years to Maturity: 14.6 yrs.
-
- Figure 3
- Current Portfolio Holdings
-
- H I J K L M N
- 24 Current
- 25 Price Market % of Current Approx. Duration
- 26 (% of Face) Value Holdgs Yield Income Y.T.M. (Years)
- 27 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- 28 84.000 $4,200.00 8.79% 8.333% $350.00 9.182% 8.06
- 29 91.125 $9,112.50 19.06% 9.465% $862.50 9.361% 10.89
- 30 107.125 $3,213.75 6.72% 11.202% $360.00 11.255% 8.84
- 31 75.000 $3,750.00 7.84% 8.000% $300.00 9.304% 8.59
- 32 105.375 $21,075.00 44.09% 9.727% $2,050.00 9.182% 5.20
- 33 64.500 $6,450.00 13.49% 0.000% $0.00 13.330% 3.38
- 34 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
- 35 $47,801.25 100.00% 8.206% $3,922.50 9.925% 6.80
- 36 ==========================================================
-
- These percentage weights allow us to determine the duration of the entire
- portfolio. For our example portfolio, the duration is 6.8 years, or about 6
- years and 10 months. In contrast, the average maturity of the portfolio is
- 14.6 years.
-
- The numbers in Figures 2 and 3 illustrate several important features of
- duration. First, as we just saw, duration is always less than or equal to time
- to maturity. For zero coupon issues, such as the Turner Broadcasting notes,
- the duration is exactly the time to maturity. For all other bonds, the
- duration will be less than time to maturity. Second, the duration of a
- portfolio is sensitive to portfolio composition. Nearly half of the value of
- this portfolio is in the IBM bonds, which are relatively short term. That
- holding causes the duration of the portfolio to be relatively short.
- Increasing the percentage of holdings in the AT&T debentures that are due in
- 2026 would significantly increase the duration of the portfolio.
-
- Duration allows us to estimate the effects of changes in interest rates on the
- value of our bond holdings. The longer the duration of our portfolio, the
- greater the change in value when interest rates change. (Another discussion of
- duration appeared in the September/October, 1988 issue of CI. See pages 7 and
- 8, especially.) Remember that the value of a bond or portfolio of bonds does
- not change symmetrically with symmetric changes in interest rates. That is, if
- the average yield to maturity for the bonds in our portfolio were to increase
- by 1 percentage point, the value of the portfolio would decrease. This
- decrease in value is less than the increase in value that would occur, if the
- average yield to maturity on the portfolio were to decrease by 1 percentage
- point.
-
- Nevertheless, duration allows us to get an idea of the impact of changes in the
- levels of market interest rates. As Figure 1 shows, an increase in rates of 1%
- would decrease the value of the portfolio by about 6.19%. Of course, we would
- be able to invest any new funds at higher returns, so some of this loss would
- be offset. In fact, duration allows us to balance out the effects of lower
- portfolio values and higher reinvestment opportunities, if we so desire.
-
- Balancing the Effects of Higher Yields and Lower Portfolio Values
-
- Interest rate changes have two effects on bond portfolios. Suppose, for
- example, that market interest rates increase. When rates increase, the values
- of existing bonds decline. With higher rates, however, new investment, or
- reinvestment of future cash flows, will earn a higher return. With the
- exception of the zero coupon issue, all of our portfolio is generating cash
- flows through interest income. These cash flows are thus more valuable when
- interest rates rise. An important question for an investor is how long must
- the cash flows occur in order for the higher reinvestment rate to balance out
- the effect of the lower portfolio value. Can an investor structure a portfolio
- so as to minimize changes in total return?
-
- You might think that the best way to accomplish the goal of decreasing
- variations in bond returns is to simply hold the bonds in your portfolio until
- they mature. This will not work. While you will get the face value of your
- investment back if you do so, you are, in fact, holding your bonds too long.
-
- Selling before the time to duration results in net price risk; selling after
- duration results in net reinvestment rate risk. For interest rate increases,
- net price risk simply means that the potential effect of decreasing portfolio
- value outweighs the effect of increasing reinvestment return. Net reinvestment
- rate risk means that the effect of greater reinvestment opportunities is
- outweighs the effect of decreasing portfolio value. The appropriate way to
- minimize variation in bond returns is to set the duration of a bond portfolio
- equal to your anticipated holding period. By doing so, the effects of value
- changes due to interest rate variations will be offset by the greater returns
- due to better reinvestment opportunities.
-
- Strictly speaking, whenever interest rates change, so does the duration of the
- portfolio. Figure 4 shows this. Because of the increase in the yields to
- maturity of the bonds in the portfolio, the duration of the portfolio has
- decreased to 6.64 years. In order to maintain a duration equal to the years
- remaining in your holding period, you must rebalance your portfolio. That is,
- you must reallocate funds among the various bonds so that the duration is
- adjusted to counteract the effects of changing interest rates. For most
- individuals, this is simply too costly. If interest rate changes are not too
- severe, the penalty from failing to adjust your portfolio is probably something
- you can ignore. Most institutions rebalance only on an annual basis.
-
- Figure 4
- Revised Market Yield Assumptions
-
- O P Q R S T U
- 25 Revised
- 26 Changed New Value Current Total % of Duration
- 26 Y.T.M. (% of Face) Income Yield Value Holdgs in Years
- 27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- 28 9.800% 80.231 $350.00 8.725% $4,011.53 8.54% 7.94
- 29 9.800% 88.344 $862.50 9.763% $8,834.41 18.81% 10.51
- 30 12.500% 96.150 $360.00 12.480% $2,884.51 6.14% 8.21
- 31 9.400% 74.690 $300.00 8.033% $3,734.49 7.95% 8.57
- 32 9.200% 105.315 $2,050.00 9.733% $21,062.93 44.86% 5.20
- 33 13.500% 64.270 $0.00 0.000% $6,426.98 13.69% 3.38
- 34 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- 35 10.171% $3,922.50 8.354% $46,954.86 100.00% 6.64
- 36 ======== ===================================================
-
- What understanding duration allows you to do is structure certain parts of your
- portfolio to realize certain goals. For example, suppose you are planning on
- several future major cash outlays at different times. Perhaps you plan to
- retire in 10 years and buy a condominium in Florida; then in another 3 years
- (13 years in the future) you want to make a round-the-world cruise; finally
- after 20 years you want to present your grandchildren with enough cash to get
- them through an expensive university. If you structured your portfolio so that
- you had enough bonds with a duration of 10 years to provide your down payment
- on the condominium, enough with a duration of 13 years to go on your cruise,
- and a sufficient sum with a duration of 20 years to endow your grandchildren's
- education, you would achieve your objectives with little variation in total
- return on your portfolio. This allows you to project quite accurately the
- return you need to provide the necessary cash.
-
- Setting up the Input Data
-
- The input screen is shown in Figure 2. While we are using only six bonds to
- illustrate the process, you may enter as many as you want. Simply copy the
- necessary formulas down as many rows as you need. The basic data required are
- the issuer, the bond rating, the coupon rate, the maturity date, the initial
- cost and the number of bonds owned. The cost should be entered the way price
- quotes are normally given, as a percentage of face value. Finally, to simplify
- some of the duration formulas, which are quite complex, we have calculated some
- preliminary data. This appear in Figure 5.
-
- Figure 5
- Miscellaneous Calculations
-
- V W Z Y Z AA AB AC AD AE AF
- 23 [] REVISED DATA CALCULATIONS [] ORIGINAL DATA CALCULATIONS []
- 24 [] @ Revised YTMs [] @ ytm = approx. ytm []
- 25 []Weighted Weighted Annuity P. V. []Weighted Weighted Annuity P. V. []
- 26 []Duration Y.T.M. Factor Factor [] Y.T.M. Duration Factor Factor []
- 27 []--------------------------------[]----------------------------------[]
- 28 [] 0.679 0.008 14.121 0.308 [] 0.008 0.708 14.566 0.331 []
- 29 [] 1.977 0.018 19.840 0.028 [] 0.018 2.076 20.670 0.033 []
- 30 [] 0.504 0.008 15.398 0.038 [] 0.008 0.594 16.851 0.052 []
- 31 [] 0.681 0.007 14.888 0.300 [] 0.007 0.673 14.964 0.304 []
- 32 [] 2.331 0.041 10.123 0.534 [] 0.040 2.292 10.129 0.535 []
- 33 [] 0.463 0.018 5.293 0.643 [] 0.018 0.457 5.309 0.646 []
- 34 []--------------------------------[]----------------------------------[]
- 35 [] [] []
- 36 [] [] []
-
- The only difficult entry is the maturity date. To enter that we must use of
- the spreadsheet's date functions. The @date function takes a given year, month
- and day and converts them into something Lotus can understand. 1-2-3 keeps
- track of time by counting the days since December 31, 1899 and can go to
- December 31, 2099. Years are represented serially from 1900. For example,
- 1988 is simply 88, but 2011 would be 111.
-
- The form of the @date function is:
-
- @date(year number,month number,day number)<P>
-
- Our first AT&T bond matures on February 15, 2001. The formula that appears in
- cell D28 is @date(101,2,15). Lotus can also deal with formulas or cell
- references in the @date function. For example, one of our inputs is the
- current date in cells B4, C4 and D4. Since we have entered 1988 in cell D5,
- when we want to show that reference, we use:
-
- @date($D$4-1900,$C$4,$B$4)<P>
-
- Subtracting 1900 from 1988 gives us the year 88, which is what 1-2-3 expects in
- the formula. The dollar signs ($s) ensure that the cell references do not
- change when we copy the formula. For users with Release 2 of 1-2-3 or a
- compatible program, you can simply use the @now function to return the current
- date as stored in your PC. However, if you do not set this date each time you
- start your computer, or have the date set automatically, then all the
- calculations will be off.
-
- Since 1-2-3 determines every date serially, you must then format the cell where
- the date function appears to translate that serial number and display it as a
- date. Cells D28 through D33 are formatted using the / Range Format Date
- command, with the first date format.
-
- Examining the Effects of Changes in Market Interest Rates
-
- Figure 4 shows the results of changes in your estimates of market yields. The
- worksheet is designed so you can enter either a new yield for each individual
- bond in your portfolio, or you can simply enter a single, overall portfolio
- yield. In Figure 4 we have entered new data for each individual bond. The
- results of these changes are summarized in the lower part of the summary
- screen, which is shown in Figure 1. The average portfolio yield to maturity is
- taken from cell M35 and appears in cell D11. The new portfolio value and the
- percentage and dollar change from the current value are shown immediately below
- D11.
-
- As you can see, we have assumed that yields on the bonds have increased. This
- results in a decline in portfolio value as well as a slight decline in the
- portfolio's duration. As a result of the decrease in the market value of the
- portfolio, the current yield has increased. This increase reflects the
- improvement in reinvestment opportunities as a consequence of the interest rate
- rise.
-
- What this spreadsheet allows you to do is understand the current position of
- your fixed income portfolio and plan for anticipated changes. With this
- information and an understanding of how interest rate changes affect your bond
- holdings you will be in a better position to make careful financial plans.
-
- (c) Copyright 1989 by the
- American Association of Individual Investors