Yield Spread

  

Categories: Bonds, Investing, Econ

The yield spread helps investors make decisions. It's the difference between two yields on different debt instruments. Basically, it’s the investor saying, “what’s the opportunity cost of x security over y security? Which will get me a higher yield?”

The debt instruments don’t even have to be that similar. Apples and oranges. Bananas and kiwis. They can have different maturities, credit ratings, and levels of risk.

When looking at a yield spread, it can also help investors choose between debt instruments based on the current versus the historical yield spread. For instance, if something used to have a small return, but now has a large return, it will shrink the yield spread between that debt instrument and another, more stable security. In that case, the investor would probably go with the debt instrument that is doing very well now compared to before, since it’s attractive, with a current yield that’s higher than it was previously.

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Finance: What is Spread To Treasuries?3 Views

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Finance allah shmoop what is spread to treasuries All right

00:08

all right close that play bond magazine there people The

00:11

answers are all right here Spread to treasuries is not

00:15

a type of you know art photo but rather it's

00:18

an indication of risk associated with a given debt or

00:21

bond offering In the investing world Everything is calculated as

00:25

some additional premium or additional cost or additional capital rental

00:31

percentage all tact on to the safest investment in the

00:35

world Things from the us treasury like t bills and

00:39

bonds stuff like that from treasury We'll think about it

00:42

like you're going to a restaurant looking at the dinner

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salad there for three bucks It's the cheapest thing on

00:48

the menu if you wanted a steak Well that state

00:51

costs fif eighteen dollars but it's a spread or premium

00:55

to the dinner salad of twelve bucks right Three bucks

00:58

for the south and you'd have to add twelve from

01:00

state prize You get stick And if you really wanted

01:03

to just use smaller numbers so that your customers would

01:06

have the illusion that they were paying fewer box for

01:09

dinner well you could describe everything in your restaurant as

01:12

some spread to dinner salad such that this medium rare

01:16

rib eye was in fact simply a spread to salad

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or premium of twelve bucks Even though you're paying fifteen

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anyway Us treasuries air broadly considered to be the safest

01:27

bond bet in the world at least today until china

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or robots or both take everything over So when a

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bond offering is made it is priced relative to treasuries

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in the same way dinner items would be priced relative

01:41

to that dinner salad house salad there with the oil

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and vinegar dressing that is if the bond offering is

01:47

for say ten years than the u s treasury ten

01:50

year paper that moment would be the foundational elements against

01:54

which their risk your debt instruments would then be priced

01:58

So let's say that today that ten year treasury paper

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is yielding three point two percent Caterpillar tractor wants to

02:05

borrow a billion dollars to build their new tractor smelting

02:09

plant there then offered by investors one hundred twenty basis

02:13

point spread to treasuries debt deal to a fund that

02:17

factory with a billion dollars of debt What does that

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mean It means that lenders are willing tto loan caterpillar

02:23

A billion dollars payable in ten years at three point

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two percent per year plus one point two percent for

02:30

total interest of four point four percent interest per year

02:35

You know take it or leave it That's it So

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to recap this is play bond magazine and this is

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play But magazine reads it for the articles Really weird

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