Coupon frequency
How many times a year the issuer pays: monthly, quarterly, twice a year.
How to read the number
The more often money arrives, the faster it returns to circulation, and the shorter the effective duration for the same maturity date.
When the metric lies
Frequent payments look convenient, but every arrival has to be placed somewhere. In a cutting cycle it is reinvested on worse terms than the ones it came from.
Also known as: payment frequency, coupons per year