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How can I check the interest rate of a bond issued by a particular company (e.g. GE)? I have found this for instance: GE corporate bonds.
According to that, the coupon is ~8%. That sounds impossible to me given the covid-19 crisis and having all central banks smashing interest rates. Is this correct?
Is there any way of getting (free) aggregate data about the current corporate bonds' interest rates (for companies that are part of the S&P 500 for instance)?
Is this correct?
Yes, that is correct. But look at the price of that bond. It's currently trading at 102% of its par value, which means that you'll pay 102 MXN to get back 100 MXN when it matures, plus 2 MXN in interest every quarter. So your actual income from this bond is less than 8% - it's closer to 7%, mostly due to the fact that it's denominated in Mexican Pesos, where current risk-free interest rates are closer to 5% (due to expected inflation). Bonds from that company of a similar length in USD have a yield closer to 1%.
That's the stat you're interested in - the yield. It tells you what your effective income for the bond is if you hold it to maturity. If you pay more than the par value for the bond, then the yield is lower than the stated interest rate.
That sounds impossible to me given the covid-19 crisis and having all central banks smashing interest rates.
In addition to the other answer which explains that "yield" is truly ~7%, the central bank rate of MXN is closer to 6%
In general, the yield of a corporate bond with no features (e.g. not callable) is:
Central Bank Yield Curve of that Currency + Default Risk of that Company + Other Premium
If the company does not pay interest rate above the central bank, why should the public buy that company's bond instead of central bank's bond?
The default risk (chance of going bankrupt) is represented by Baa1 bond rating.
