Bonds are a contract saying, "I'll pay you a fixed amount of money after a fixed amount of time". They then try to sell that contract on the open market. Depen

Bonds are a contract saying, "I'll pay you a fixed amount of money after a fixed amount of time". They then try to sell that contract on the open market. Depending on how risky the market perceives the contract to be, the price could be a lot lower (increasing the effective interest rate)