Compound Accreted Value - CAV

Categories: Metrics, Investing

Look in a box of stuff from your childhood. It’s possible you might find a $50 U.S. Treasury Bond that you received from a grandparent back in the day. While the bond might say $50 on it…that's the value when it matures.

Let’s say that the bond will be worth $50 in 2025. How do you determine the value of that piece of paper right now?

That's where Compound Accreted Value comes in. This is the theoretical value of a zero-coupon bond (and other long-term investments that don’t pay interest or coupons). Basically, you’ll just take the original amount of money that the buyer paid for the bond and calculate the compound interest over time.

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Finance: What is Compounding Value or Co...1773 Views

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Finance allah shmoop What is calm Pounding value or compounding

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interest Ah the power of compounding it makes tree's stronger

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pollution More feral and the rich Well richer How so

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Well let's start with compounds kissing cousin with six toes

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Arithmetic calm pounding Right So the first was really geometric

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compounding Now we're talking about arithmetic compounding If you invest

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a thousand bucks in a ten year bond that pay

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six percent a year in interest the dough comes back

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to you in a pattern that looks like this Like

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every six months they pay thirty bucks and it's sixty

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dollars a year Got it nice You get the total

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of sixteen hundred bucks back from your investment And the

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cash that came back to you you know came in

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small parts all along the way until you got about

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two thirds of it or sixty percent at the end

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right If you just spent that money and collected your

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thousand bucks at the end That's it Okay So that's

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arithmetic compounding the money comes to you You don't reinvest

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it Ding ding ding that's the key here and you

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just go buy burgers Okay So now let's look at

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what six percent compound id looks like over the same

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ten year period Wealth at the end of your one

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it's a thousand sixty bucks and no we're only going

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to compound it annually We probably should do the semi

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annually but we confuse you even more is we won't

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do that but then you essentially re invest that money

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and you get another six percent compounded on that thousand

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sixty instead of six percent compounded against the original thousand

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so by the end of your two you'll have a

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thousand one hundred twenty three sixty and by the end

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of your ten you'll have one thousand seven hundred ninety

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dollars and eighty five cents So why do you make

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so much more money when you compound interest versus getting

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thirty bucks twice a year like you would in this

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bond example going by and burgers with it You don't

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wanna do that well essentially what's happening is that you're

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delaying your gratification of getting that sweet sweet cash or

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getting liquid Whatever you wanna call it by reinvesting your

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gains year after year after year So do you have

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that sort of self control Do you need the cash

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Yeah that's The question If you for example have trouble

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making it home from your local pizza spot with the

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pie intact well and compound interest Keeping the discipline to

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not spend the money today and wait for the happiness

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tomorrow Well when that may not be for you Sorry

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