Basic question on corporate bonds

Sorry for asking a basic question, but it has been couple of years since I learnt institutional details of bond market and I forgot some basic facts about coupon payments, I have a panel data on corporate bonds (FINRA Trace) and need to calculate yield to maturity for each bond. The problem is that there is no variable indicating coupon payment frequency (semi-annually, annually etc) and coupon payment date. Do I need to assume that all corporate bonds, which pay coupon, pay it semi-annually? And is there a universal fixed date for paying coupon (say, the last day of June and the last day of December) or it may vary for different bonds? I mean, can I assume that there are universal answers to these two questions or I need to contact data provider and request additional data?

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Best Response

Wow. Thought this would be generally a straightfoward question for a finance site. One of the 5 basic finance equations you need to know is:

Assets = Liabilities + Equity

When you issue a bond or debt (its easier when you consider it debt), you are placing more risk onto the balance sheet. This debt will have interest that WILL have to be paid every year regardless of earnings, outlook, etc. . A portion of money that would have gone to maybe grow shareholders wealth or to pay out dividends will now be used to pay interest on this debt.

I agree for optimus that for most IG names, it will be pretty much immaterial. And yes, some HY names may actually go up if it is a large refi . However, generally speaking, stocks go down when more bonds are issued.

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