Forward yield
The rate of return in the market today for a notional or actual deposit or borrowing:
- Starting at a fixed future date; and
- Ending on a later fixed future date.
Example
The forward yield for the maturity 2-3 periods is 3% per period.
This is the rate payable for period 3 only - a single period - which is pre-agreed today, 2 periods before the deposit or borrowing is contracted to change hands.
This means that a mutually binding agreement can be made today, for a deposit of £1,000,000 to be made at Time 2 periods into the future, which will return:
£1,000,000 x 1.03
= £1,030,000 at Time 3 periods.
A common application of forward yields is the pricing of forward rate agreements.
The forward yield is also known as the Forward rate or (sometimes) the Forward forward rate.
(The forward forward rate is technically slightly different.)
Conversion
If we know the forward yield, we can calculate both the zero coupon yield and the par yield for the same maturities and risk class.
The conversion process and calculation stems from the 'no-arbitrage' relationship between the related yield curves.
This is illustrated on the page Converting from forward rates.
