BondValuation: An R Package for Fixed Coupon Bond Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the R package BondValuation for analysis of large datasets of fixed coupon bonds. The conceptual heterogeneity of fixed coupon bonds traded in the global markets imposes a high degree of complexity on their comparative analysis. Contrary to baseline fixed income theory, in practice, the majority of bonds feature coupon period irregularities. In addition, there is a multitude of day count methods, which determine the interest accrual, the cash flows and the discount factors used in bond valuation. Several R packages, e.g., fBonds, RQuantLib, and YieldCurve, provide tools for fixed income analysis. However, none of them is capable of evaluating bonds featuring irregular first and/or final coupon periods, and neither provides adequate coverage of day count conventions currently used in the global bond markets. The R package BondValuation closes this gap.