Accelerated Return Note (ARN)

  

Think about an ARN like it's a bond that converts into an index fund. Or rather, it has the option to convert into an index fund if the bond holder wants it to. In essence, a buyer of the bond risks losing, say, a third of the bond's value in return for the option of potentially participating in a big, fat, bull market rise in the stock market. Basically, ARNs are just bonds that are convertible with a little bit of spice. They come in all kinds of flavors and covenants, and only exist in a world of anemic bond returns, like that of the modern era. They are not for the faint of heart.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What are the Different Types of...424 Views

00:00

finance a la shmoop what are the different types of bonds? okay so yeah

00:08

insert the Fifty Shades joke here. bonds the kind that won't get you an r-rating

00:13

are serious business actually. your grandparents like lived on them or their

00:18

interest anyway and they are the lifeblood of American homes. why because [black and white picture of neighborhood]

00:22

another fancy word for a bond is mortgage.

00:26

yeah mortgage bonds. yep when you take out a loan to buy a home some mortgage

00:30

company aka a bank is creating a bond for you, so you can have that white

00:36

picket fence two kids a dog in a room to store all your Star Wars memorabilia. a

00:40

bond is a promise. a solemn swear by an individual or an

00:45

organization to pay back money loan to them. and the vast majority like well [kids pinkie swear]

00:49

over 99% of all bonds made in the US of A pay fully on schedule on time and the

00:55

lenders are made whole. despite tons of negative muckraking press we actually

01:00

have very few deadbeats in this country. so bonds represent a kind of almost

01:04

guaranteed income source for many. they exist as a stabilizing income stream and

01:09

with relatively high degrees of safety ie low risk, they understandably carry

01:15

less financial reward even generally speaking. and there is a carefully [man goes fishing]

01:19

manicured spectrum of risk in bonds. all right let's start with government bonds.

01:23

the lowest risk lowest financial return but safest bonds are US government bonds,

01:29

which are backed by the country's ability to tax its hard-working citizens.

01:33

government bonds and well-funded corporations carry what is called a

01:37

A rated paper or A ratings. Yes even governments get credit ratings. [chart showing ratings]

01:43

gets riskier the ratings of that bond get lower and lower all the way down to

01:48

a category called junk. which are bonds where the interest covering them has

01:52

material "iffiness". technical term. Puerto Rico a u.s. territory famously defaulted

01:59

on its bonds in 2017 so its credit rating lives [man stands in front of city]

02:03

out here. so yeah government bonds are the safest bonds and usually also pay

02:08

the lowest interest rate. corporate bonds alright well next on the food chain are

02:12

corporate bonds companies put cash in their bank accounts in three basic ways,

02:17

they sell equity or ownership or shares or stock in themselves like in an IPO.

02:23

they can also make money from selling their product that is a single shingle

02:27

sells for 19.95 and they keep $4 in 82 cents and profits from it times 10 [birds on a roof]

02:33

million and you know that's a lot of cash from shingles. and C they put cash

02:36

in their coffers by selling bonds or selling debt. that is they pay rent for

02:42

borrowing the cash money just as government's do. what do Microsoft Koch

02:46

and your deadbeat uncle all have in common well they all have debt

02:51

outstanding. most companies like well over 99% of them boringly pay off all [long haired man frowns from the couch]

02:56

their interest and when the bonds come due however many years or decades later

03:00

they pay the principal and they're done. they presumably use the money wisely but

03:05

the more interesting Bond stories revolve around the times when company's

03:08

best laid plans go awry and they snuggle up real close next to bankruptcy. if our

03:17

roofing company we've got shingles has ninety million bucks in pre-tax profits

03:22

they might have one point six billion dollars of bonds with an interest rate

03:25

of 5% well the interest costs are 80 million dollars a year so the company is [equations]

03:30

only making 10 million bucks. just enough to cover the interest should the profits

03:36

fall well the company would go into default, they'd miss an interest payment

03:40

and then in theory the bondholders could a well, just repossess the company.

03:44

the bondholders would control the company sell off assets to pay

03:48

themselves back their loans, and well then the company usually dies. so that's [man carries buckets of shingles]

03:52

not good and that's why the bonds are called junk, or in more proper parlance

03:57

high-yield. they live way to the right on the risk spectrum because that whole

04:01

snuggling up right next to bankruptcy thing is not something Wall Street

04:05

people like doing .childhood intimacy issues I guess. so while a very safe US

04:10

government 10-year bond might pay 3% interest a similar but very junky junk

04:15

junk junk corporate bond my pay 12% or more to adjust for the very

04:20

high degree of risk. there are other flavors of funds as well, one highly [corporate bond pictured]

04:25

popular bond with high tax payers are muni bonds. 8k a municipal bonds yep.

04:31

they're a special class a bond generally created so that local areas can fund

04:35

projects important to their community. like parks and parking structures and

04:40

sports arenas. they're structured just like corporate and government bonds and

04:44

that they have principal, the amount being borrowed, and a rental rate or

04:47

interest rate for renting the money. the one key difference no tax yeah. say that

04:52

again. sweet sweet music. no tax .whereas government corporate bonds are taxable

04:58

Muniz generally are not. well why the big break because the feds wanted local [chart]

05:03

people to really care about the local financial health of whatever

05:06

infrastructure they were building locally. so the federal government

05:10

doesn't have to get its hands dirty in city activities, whether that's building

05:14

a new field for the local baseball team or supporting a local park that's been [man folds arms in front of construction site]

05:19

down and out because the roofing company who built the little shack that housed

05:22

all the toys in it caved in. so as you can see there are more varieties of

05:26

bonds than there are flavors in an ice-cream shop, even if none of them hit

05:31

the spot quite like rocky road. now that'll give you long term gains. [man smiles in an ice cream shop]

Up Next

Finance: What is Convertible Debt?
43 Views

What is convertible debt? Convertible debt is a type of bond that’s issued by a corporation. Ownership of these bonds means that the holder has t...

Finance: What's the Difference Between Mutual Funds and Index Funds?
121 Views

What is the difference between mutual funds and index funds? Mutual funds are professionally managed. Those investors trade shares and realize taxa...

Finance: What is Busted Convertible?
14 Views

What is a Busted Convertible? A busted convertible is a convertible bond that will never be converted to stock because the underlying stock price i...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)