Let's say you have a bond position worth $10,000. It has an annual coupon rate of 5% and it makes payments every six months. You want to sell it, but it has been two months since the last payment, so you need to calculate your unpaid interest as of the settlement date.
To do this, you'll need to figure out the monthly interest owed and multiply it by two. The formula is $10,000 x .05 / 12 = $41.67. This means you have $83.33 of accrued interest. Make sure when you sell the bond that you take that number into account.
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