Automating Partial Period Bond Valuation With Excels Day Counting Functions
An Excel model for calculating the actual price of bonds under a 30 day/month, 360 day/year day counting assumption by nesting the DAYS360 function within the PV function is developed. When programmed into an Excel spreadsheet, the model can accommodate annual and semiannual payment bonds sold on or between interest dates using six fundamental inputs, including the bond’s par value, maturity date, annual stated rate of interest, and payment frequency, the annual market rate of interest, and the settlement date. Thus, the model can be applied across the business curriculum in a variety of introductory and more advanced level courses.
Accounting for Bonds With Accrued Interest in Conformity With Brokers' Valuation Formulas
This article explains how to apply brokers' valuation methods to accounting for bonds when interest payments do not coincide with settlement or balance sheet dates. We show how to calculate a bond's present value on these dates using a simple approach that conforms with the method used by brokerage institutions to compute the bond's “actual price.” We then clarify how a broker subtracts accrued interest from this actual price to arrive at the quoted price, and how this quoted price relates to the bond's carrying amount and “fair value” (per SFAS Nos. 107, 115 and 124). We also precisely compute the change in a bond's carrying amount over fractional periods after settlement and around balance sheet dates. Finally, we demonstrate how to integrate these refinements into intermediate textbook illustrations. Throughout, we provide instructions for computing bond valuations using spreadsheet application functions.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.