The nominal dollar amount assigned to a security by the issuer. For an equity security, par is usually a very small amount that bears no relationship to its market price, except for preferred stock, in which case par is used to calculate dividend payments. For a debt security, par is the amount repaid to the investor when the bond matures (usually, corporate bonds have a par value of $1000, municipal bonds $5000, and federal bonds $10,000).
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