Bonds

Bond prices can be estimated when a recent traded price is unavailable. The estimate may use recent trades, issuer information, and market yields. Full technical details on sovereign curve fitting and credit spreads are documented in our data quality ledger.

The Clean Price is the quoted price of the bond excluding interest that has accumulated since the last coupon date. The Dirty Price (invoice price) is what the buyer actually pays: Clean Price + Accrued Interest computed using the SEBI ACT/ACT day-count convention up to the T+1 settlement date.

Coupon interest received on corporate bonds is treated as "Income from Other Sources" and taxed at the investor’s applicable marginal income tax slab rate. For listed debt securities purchased after July 23, 2024, long-term capital gains (holding period > 12 months) are taxed at 12.5% without indexation under Finance Act 2024 rules. Specified Tax-Free PSU Bonds (under Section 10(15)(iv)(h)) remain 100% exempt from income tax on interest.

Additional Tier-1 (AT1) bonds are perpetual debt instruments issued by banks to meet Basel III capital adequacy requirements. They have no fixed maturity date and carry discretionary coupon payment and principal write-down risk. Yield for AT1 bonds is quoted as Yield to Call (YTC) based on the earliest scheduled issuer call exercise date rather than Yield to Maturity.

The Indian sovereign benchmark is the Government of India (G-Sec) zero-coupon and par yield curve fitted across tenors from 91-day T-Bills up to 40-year dated securities. The 10-year benchmark G-Sec yield serves as the primary reference risk-free rate against which all corporate debenture credit spreads are measured.