Using 30/360 Day Counts to Discount Bond Cash Flows
Summary
The document explains how a 30/360 day-count convention affects discounting dated bond cash flows. Under this convention, elapsed time is computed by treating months as 30 days and years as 360 days, with details depending on the specific convention used. The time fraction then enters the discount factor alongside the discount rate and compounding assumption. The examples compare daily compounding with annual compounding and show how the same rate and period produce slightly different discount factors.
A second answer applies the convention to a schedule of semiannual dates, including dates falling on the 31st, and describes the intervals as half a year each. The schedule alone is insufficient to calculate net present value: discount rates are also required. The varying cash flows do not clearly identify a standard fixed-coupon bond, so the document cannot infer those rates or produce a complete valuation. Its examples illustrate the mechanics rather than establish which compounding basis or market curve applies to a particular bond.
Key ideas
- A 30/360 convention measures time by treating each month as 30 days and each year as 360 days.
- The day-count fraction is used with a discount rate and compounding assumption to calculate a discount factor.
- Daily and annual compounding can produce different discount factors for the same period and rate.
- A cash-flow schedule without discount rates is not enough to calculate net present value.
- The specific 30/360 variant matters when adjusting dates such as month ends.
Tags
Full text
# 30360 Daycount Count Convention to find NPV for Bonds # 30360 Daycount Count Convention to find NPV for Bonds Using a 30/360 day count convention, how can you value the NPV of these cash flows and the discount factor? I know how to discount cash flows but how does it differ using a 30/360 approach? What is the approach that I should be using? ``` Date Payments Discount Factor Discounted Value 12/31/2012 0 100.00% 6/30/2013 75,200 12/31/2013 50,600 6/30/2014 86,700 12/31/2014 77,000 6/30/2015 74,400 12/31/2015 25,200 6/30/2016 70,700 12/31/2016 81,800 ``` ## Answer by Matt Wolf (score 2) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/8498 You are missing the rates in your question you need to derive your DFs. The only difference between day count convention is how you adjust your rate to convert to the actual rate applicable between the date of the cash flow and the date to which you pv the future cf. Generally the following function applies: 1/((1+r/360)^360*T), where T is the time in years between the pv date and the cf date, given each month has 30 days and the year 360 days. Example: r(t0, t1) = 5%, dcConvention = 30/360, t0 = 1 Jan 2013, t1 = 15 Mar 2013 T = 74 days / 360 days = 0.20555555 DF(t1) approx = 0.989775564 Edit This above calculation implies daily compounding. If rates are only annually compounded then the following function applies: 1/(1+r)^T which works out to be in this example: 1/(1+0.05)^0.2055555 = 0.990021 ## Answer by Phil H (score 0) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/8533 In the data provided, the Dec dates are all 31st. In the 30/360 conventions (Wikipedia has details of the different 30/360 versions), the factor is calculated from the difference in years, months and days separately; years count as 12 months, and months count as 30 days. Generally 31st gets lowered to 30 days. In this manner, the distance between the first two dates (2012-12-31 and 2013-06-30) becomes 1 year, -6 months and 0 days (in the convention), and thus the factor for the dates (see Wikipedia explanation for details) comes out as exactly 0.5. The 30/360 factors for the periods specified by those dates, then, are 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 etc. Usually bonds have a fixed coupon rate, but those interest payments in the question and the neat fractions above do not square with each other, so something else is going on. In order to discount, you would need a rate to discount at. I thought I might retrieve it from the interest and a guess at the principal, but the interest payments vary too much to be a vanilla bond.
Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.