There seem to be a zillion services which offer stock prices (real
time and closing) to the retail investor, but I haven't been able to
find one (even from my stock broker) for bond prices. What is the
lowest cost service available to me, as a retail investor, which would
provide current and historical corporate, municpal and treasury prices
(lookup based on CUSIP number) on (a) closing price; and (b) real time
basis? |
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
14 Nov 2003 10:07 PST
Funny who different the bond and stock information services are!
I know of at least one site that provides background and real time
information on corporate,municipal and treasury bonds, based on
searches by bond issuer name or CUSIP number. A typical listing for a
corporate bond, for instance, looks like this:
----------
Qty...Rating...Issuer.....Coupon....Maturity....Best Ofr Price/Yld/Qty
110 A-/A3 Dow Chem 7.000 ......08-15-2005.......108.573/1.959/110
----------
Clicking on the issuer name provides additional information:
Cusip 260543BK8
Issuer DOW CHEM CO
Coupon 7.000
Maturity 08-15-2005
Listed? No
Industry Industrial
Moody's/S&P A3/A-
Delivery Book Entry
Pay Freq. Semi-Annual
Tax Status
Bond Type CORP
Issue Date 08-18-2000
First Coupon 02-15-2001
Callable Non Callable
----------
The site also provides a generalized, short-term, historic perspective:
Corporate Bonds
last updated: 11/14/2003 12:12:40 PM PST
Maturity Yield...Ystdy...Last Wk...Last Month
2yr AA...1.98 ... 2.03 ... 2.18 ... 2.18
2yr A ... 2.33 ... 2.41 .. 2.61 ... 2.61
5yr AA . 3.43 ... 3.49 .. 3.67 ... 3.67
5yr A... 3.66... 3.72.. 3.97... 3.97
10yr AA. 4.74.. 4.79 .. 4.96 ... 4.96
10yr A .. 4.81 .... 4.9 .. 5.09 ... 5.09
20yr AA . 5.92.. 5.98 . 6.01 ... 6.01
20yr A ... 6.13 ... 6.2.. 6.23 ... 6.23
----------
Although I've used corporate bonds as an example, equivalent
information is available on all types of bonds.
==========
A separate site provides in-depth historical data ONLY on municipal
bonds. The information includes trades and closing prices going back
to the year 2000. They also provide a list of the "worst offenders"
as far as market spreads, and also have a daily e-mail service that
can update you on bond information.
==========
There is no charge for the information service at either site.
Please let me know how closely these sites would meet your needs, and
what additional information you would need for a complete answer to
your question.
Thanks.
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
avhfj-ga
on
14 Nov 2003 13:00 PST
Well the site you describe in the first part of your request looks
very close indeed to what I want. However, I also need historical
prices (presumably closing prices) for each bond (not just the general
segments or just the municipals). I'm looking for historical data so
that I can do correlation and regression analysis. Can do?
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
14 Nov 2003 13:39 PST
Thanks for getting back to me.
Historical information is available on munis and treasury bonds,
through separate (but easy to access) sites.
Oddly, though, the same type of information does not seem to be
available for corporate bonds. I'm not sure why this is...and it does
seem odd...but a pretty thorough search hasn't turned up anything.
So...I can offer you history data on two out of three -- municipal and
treasury bonds, but not corporate bonds. Perhaps this is why your
broker came up empty handed as well...the data just isn't out there!
Just to be on the safe side, I am going to unlock your question, in
case another researcher has access to historical corporate bond
information that I am not aware of. However, if you'd like me to go
ahead and answer your question with the information I have available,
just let me know.
As a reminder, you can always adjust the price of your question, if
you wish, to reflect the fact that some of what you are asking for
does not seem to be available.
Happy Investing!
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
avhfj-ga
on
14 Nov 2003 14:57 PST
Thanx. I appreciate your unlocking the question. Let me wait a day
or so to see what else turns up. If nothing does, I'll probably go
ahead with you. Would $90 be acceptable?
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
14 Nov 2003 15:42 PST
Good idea. I hate to see a customer get less than 100% of what
they're after, so I hope another researcher can come forward with the
information I haven't been able to locate. But if not, let me know
if/when you want me to post the information I have...your offer of a
$90 fee strikes me as more than fair.
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
avhfj-ga
on
15 Nov 2003 11:09 PST
:-)
|
Clarification of Question by
avhfj-ga
on
16 Nov 2003 08:24 PST
Dear Mr./Ms. Pafalafa-ga:
One thought as I was looking over your first reply to me: You quote a
typical listing as being:
Qty...Rating...Issuer.....Coupon....Maturity....Best Ofr Price/Yld/Qty
110 A-/A3 Dow Chem 7.000 ......08-15-2005.......108.573/1.959/110
<snip>
What is the significance of the "Qty" field? Are you sure that the
site is not listing just the bonds that the web site owner has for
sale or is looking for at the time?
Thanx.
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
17 Nov 2003 12:18 PST
Good question:
As far as I can tell (and I admit, I'm only moderately familiar with
bond trading), the data are sort of like Level II data for stock
trading, showing the bids and offers of individual trading firms. The
"110" quantity figure was the only available offer at the time I
checked, and referred to an offer of 110 shares x 1,000.
There also does not appear to be a single source of "bond price" data
-- different exchanges have different buyers and sellers involved, and
appear to show slightly different (but generally, similar)
information.
Just to be clear, here is today's listing for a General Electric bond
from the site I originally mentioned to you:
Available
(1,000s) OFFER YIELD
115 103.502 1.271
500 103.597 1.193
500 103.605 1.186
In this case, there are offers, but no current bids, but these would
be listed as well, if any were made.
----------
A separate site for bond information shows somewhat different data.
For the same GE bond, for instance, the info reads like this:
Offering
Quantity Available 578
Order Quantity 100
Minimum 0
Price 103.697
Yield to Maturity 1.110
Current Yield 4.098
----------
If there are particular bonds you want me to present information for,
let me know, and I'll be happy to post the information here from the
two sites, so that you can see what's available.
Hope this is helpful. Let me know how you would like to proceed.
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
avhfj-ga
on
18 Nov 2003 09:18 PST
Dear Mr./Ms. Pafalafa-ga:
Thanx. Well, no one else has stepped up to the plate, so let's go
ahead at $90. This is the first time I've used this service, so I'm
not sure what to do next.
I think your responses have been excellent.
avhfj
|
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
18 Nov 2003 10:35 PST
Thanks for the kind words, and for giving the go-ahead.
As soon as you adjust the question price, I'll be able to post an
answer. To make the adjustment, just click on the "Edit Question
Parameters' button towards the top of the page...it will then give you
the option to change the price.
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
avhfj-ga
on
18 Nov 2003 12:11 PST
Done.
|
Hello avhfj-ga,
First of all, thanks a lot for your patience and flexible attitude on
this. It often requires some give and take to produce a good answer
to a difficult question like yours, so I?m glad you were willing to
work with me on it.
The sites that I want to bring to your attention are listed below. If
anything about the answer here is unclear ? or if you need additional
information ? just let me know by posting a Request for Clarification,
and I?ll be happy to assist you further.
And best of luck with you investing!
pafalafa-ga
==========
The first site to note is:
http://www.tradebonds.com
There, you can register for the site (at no charge) and gain access to
their bond-trading data bases and services covering municipal,
corporate and Treasury bonds, as well as some other financial
instruments.
NOTE that their site currently has a ?we are experiencing technical
difficulties? flag on the front page..it was working fine for me just
the same, but it might be a while before you can actually log in and
use their services.
The operation of the site is pretty self explanatory ? just click on
the type of bond of interest (e.g. corporate) and type in either (a)
CUSIP number (b) Issuer name or c) screening criteria (rating,
maturity date, etc) to retrieve information on an individual bond or
on a broad list of bonds.
----------
Next is the Yahoo! Finance Bond site at:
http://bonds.yahoo.com/
In the upper left hand corner is a smallish box where you can enter a
bond name or symbol (or CUSIP, even though it doesn?t say so) to
retrieve all sorts of information.
No registration is needed to use the site.
Spend some time exploring here, as they offer a lot of resources, from
a basic intro to bonds, to some sophisticated screening and
calculation tools.
----------
The above two sites were where I drew my sample information from in
earlier postings. Some additional sites to be aware of, especially
for historical data, are:
----------
A terrific resource for municipal bonds is the site at (awww....go on...guess...!)
http://www.municipalbonds.com/
Click on any state of interest in the middle of the page to retrieve a
huge list of historical bond prices for all municipalities in the
state.
----------
Lastly, the US Department of Treasury maintains an information
resource site for Treasury bonds at:
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/of/ofaucrt.htm
Note, particularly, the section at the bottom of the screen on
?Historical Information? that offers several links to bond history
information.
----------
Well....that about does it. As I said above, if you need anything
else at all, just holler, and I?m at your service.
pafalafa-ga
search strategy: Used existing bookmarks for bond sites to generate
the required information. |
Request for Answer Clarification by
avhfj-ga
on
04 Dec 2003 10:02 PST
Hi pafalafa-ga:
Sorry to be taking so long to close out this question: my birthday
party, the flu and another project have intervened.
hope to get to it soon.
Cheers, . . . avhfj
|
Clarification of Answer by
pafalafa-ga
on
04 Dec 2003 11:12 PST
Thanks for the update.
Stay well. Celebrate hard. And of course, happy holidays.
Look forward to hearing back from you.
pafalafa-ga
|
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