>>20885443When a bond matures, it does so at par value (100.00), so if you pay more than that, it's said to be at a premium (eg 103.80) or less at a discount (eg 99.72).
So if you put $5,000 into a bond at 99.72 with a one month maturity (30 days), your yield is = (100 / 99.72) x 5000 = $5,014. Annualized, I think this works out to 3.42%.
In either case, there was some hiccup with the exrates
Liquidity doesn't matter if you're holding to maturity. This is what I see when I look at short term bonds. I find one that has a target date I want (eg a few weeks/months usually) and find the best yield. Yield is basically "if you do this for an entire year, what your annual % will be". So the one I highlighted has a 4.24803% annual yield. It is bought below par at 99.698.
It gets a lot more complicated if you plan to resell bonds, or buy ones that have had partial coupon payments already (eg a 5 year-long bond but with 6 months to go). Usually I just go by the yield%