Need any help that I can get in answering solving the following
problem.  Websites, formulas, etc.  Any information that will help me
understand how to go about finding the solution will be helpful.

Fill in the table below for the following zero coupon bonds.  The face
value of each bond is $1,000.

Price	Maturity    Yield to Maturity
$300	30		?
$300	?		8%
?	10		10%

Use the Rate, NPER, and PV functions to solve for the unknowns in the
table.

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Clarification of Question by boobee-ga on 25 Jun 2003 19:37 PDT

The table got all scrambled:  Here is the info

Price: $300; Maturity: 30; Yield to Maturity: ?
Price: $300; Maturity: ? ; Yield to Maturity: 8%
Price: ?   ; Maturity: 10; Yield to Maturity: 10%

Hi boobee,

First, here are your answers:

Question 1: the yield to maturity is 4.09486%

Question 2: the number of periods to maturity is 15.6439

Question 3: the current price is $385.54.

The formula used to solve Question 1 is i=[nth root of F/P]-1 where P
is the present value (price), F is the future value (the face value
indicating the amount to be paid at maturity), i is the interest rate
(yield), and n is the number of periods to maturity.

The formula used to solve Question 3 is P=F[1/(1+i)^n] where P is the
present value (price), F is the future value (the face value
indicating the amount to be paid at maturity), i is the interest rate
(yield), and n is the number of periods to maturity.

Questions 1 and 3 are easily calculated by plugging in the given
future value, interest-rate, and number of periods to maturity. 
Question 2 is a bit trickier in that it requires using either
interpolation from interest-rate tables, or a calculator or Excel
using an iterative process on one of the above formulas.  The formulas
above I presume correspond to the PV and Rate functions you refer to. 
The other presumably execute the iterative process I talked about to
find the number of periods unknown.

I hope the above information was helpful to you.

Sincerely,

Wonko

Thank you

How would you use the Excel RATE function to calculate YTM, the NPER
function to calculate maturity, and the PV function to calculate
price?