When you own a bond, you are not stuck with it for life. Bonds, like shares, are 'negotiable' which means that during the loan period they can be sold from one person to another at whatever price the parties agree.
This tradeability is what distinguishes bonds from other types of loan investment. Imagine you 'lend' money to your local bank by putting it in a deposit account at 5% interest. The one thing you cannot do is sell that account on to someone else.
With bonds you can.
The price you pay and the price you get will be the market price of the bond, not its nominal price. The market price may be at a discount to (i.e. lower than) the nominal price, or at a premium to (i.e. higher than) the nominal price.
Later in this course we'll look at the factors which affect bond prices, but now, the point to grasp is that two different investors who own the same bond, but who bought at different prices, will experience different returns or, as it more commonly known, 'yields'. The relationship of price to yield is central to bonds, and explored further on the next page.
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