!^%@#$^ Germans

[wrog]

Bundesbank uses a 365-day year. Why am I not surprised?

... on the bright side, it looks like I can finesse things by moving the BUNDESOBLIGATION #13 settlement date from May 24, 2006 to May 21, 2006 at 4:06:34.52054794452 pm (try doing that with TurboTax, bwahahahahahahahaha) and not have to rewrite my bond code. Yay.


(yes, I'm still doing my 2006 taxes. bite me.)

Comments

[firni.livejournal.com]

wait, what?

here, this made me laff

[solarbird]

Chief Executive Bush, on the widest income gap since the 1920s:

First of all, our society has had income inequality for a long time. Secondly, skills gaps yield income gaps.

SKILLS GAPS YIELD INCOME GAPS

This coming out of the mouth of that trainwreck just has a particular poignancy, doesn't it? Honestly, that line should be in every Democratic commercial in 2008. "You're POOR because you SUCK."

(WSJ here, RawStory here, Minyanville Point/Counterpoint here, scroll down for the lulz.)

[wrog]

when you're doing bond-interest calculations, it's a big PITA having your coupon periods all be different lengths. Typically, bonds pay out every 3 months or every 6 months; the periods are essentially intended to be the same, and it's just our messed up calendar that makes January 15 to June 15 be 181 days (182 days if it's a leap year) while June 15 to the following January 15 is 184 days.

So the general convention (in the US at least) is to pretend the year is 360 days and every month is 30 days, and then they just make sure never to have the settlement day for a bond transaction be on the 31st day of a month (you can still do the trades whenever you want, but it's the settlement day that's the basis for all of the various calculations). And if that means you're getting this extra blip of interest between 2/28 and 3/1 or things are standing still from 3/30 to 3/31, nobody cares because nobody daytrades bonds anyway (... figure if you want to speculate on interest rates on that short of a term, there are much easier ways to do it in the futures market...)