The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) now carries price data for around 25,000 federal agency bonds on its investinginbonds.com Web site.
The new data is available through a feed from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) after an expansion of its Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) to include debt issued by federal government agencies, government corporations as well as GSEs.
Investing in Bonds is a partnership between SIFMA members, SIFMA and the SIFMA Foundation for Investor Education. It offers real-time bond price information as well as a wide variety of market data, news, commentary and educational content on how the US bond markets work.
Agency bonds are issued by two types of entities, which are the GSEs as well as Federal government agencies that might issue or guarantee these bonds.
The proceeds are utilized to fund activities that are related to public purposes, including increasing home ownership or providing agricultural assistance. Agency bonds are issued in a variety of structures, coupon rates and maturities.
Each GSE and Federal agency issues its own bonds, with sizes and terms that are appropriate for the needs and purposes of the financing.
The new price information can be accessed through the government/Federal Agency Market at a Glance page of the Web site. Through an agency bond trade ticker, users can view trade time, abbreviated issuer name, CUSIP number (the unique identifier for the security), coupon and maturity date, price, yield, and number of bonds traded, along with any notes.
The site also offers a list of the most heavily traded bonds in the last five trading days, or on the current trading day.
Clicking on the number of trades will show a trade-by-trade history for the security, including trade date, price (per $1,000 of par value), yield, size (dollar amount of par value traded) and any related notes.
A screen of the day’s most recent trades provides a table showing the trade date, issuer and CUSIP number, coupon rate, maturity date, price, yield, size and notes. The same screen also has a “run calculations” function which demonstrates how different prices would result in different yields. The agency bond feed is searchable by CUSIP number, and can graph trade data.
Since 2005, the investinginbonds.com Web site has carried free, real time trading data for municipal and corporate securities, as well as information on the government bond market. The site was made to cater to different kinds of investors' needs.
A Learn More section offers new investors and others information and articles such as the effect of changes in interest rates on an individual’s investments.
A Markets-at-a-Glance section provides even the most sophisticated investor a variety of information, including economic indicators and bond indices. These range from general market barometers to very specific ones exclusively focused on markets such as corporate or sovereign debt.
The site also features a News & Commentary section that has continuous news updates and regularly updated commentary on specific markets, including MBS.
Investors can access European bond data from the link to investinginbonds.com sister site
“We are pleased to add even more information to our investinginbonds.com website, which was created as a free, non-commercial site solely designed to help educate investors,” said Rob Toomey, managing director and associate general counsel at SIFMA. “The addition of government agency prices enriches the content already available on the site, making it an even better resource and a more effective way to promote transparency in the bond markets.”
