The International Capital Market Association Ltd (ICMA Ltd) is pleased to announce that BondMarketPrices.com, a dedicated free online portal providing data on higher quality investment grade bonds with a large issue size, was launched today, December 3, 2007, offering retail investors and their advisors access to pricing and liquidity information on the global bond market.
It was developed by ICMA Ltd to comply with the European Financial Services Industry Standard of Good Practice on Bond Market Transparency for Retail Investors, drawn up by ICMA as an industry led initiative in response to calls for greater transparency in the bond market. This online resource provides retail investors with direct access to an extensive range of pricing information on bonds and heralds a new level of transparency in the fixed income sector. The site will assist them and their advisors in judging the liquidity of bonds and improve their overall awareness of market pricing.
BondMarketPrices.com publishes end of day bond data derived from dealers' closing quotes and TRAX2, ICMA Ltd's post-trade, pre-settlement, trade matching & regulatory confirmation system for the OTC market. The service is the result of extensive consultation with members of ICMA, TRAX2 subscribers and other European market participants.
Robert Gray, Chairman, Debt Financing & Advisory, HSBC and Chairman of ICMA's Regulatory Policy Committee, said: "The successful delivery of this valuable new service for retail investors in the bond market will give this community a better understanding of the range and liquidity of highly rated bonds and a greater confidence as to the current level of prices."
BondMarketPrices.com is a service to the retail investor community supplied entirely free of charge to help them and their advisors make informed investment decisions. It is a publicly accessible and open service.
BondMarketPrices.com offers visitors that day's traded and quoted pricing information at the end of the day. The portal provides the highest traded, lowest traded and the median prices for selected bonds, with delayed average daily volumes and in addition average closing quotes are provided, where available.
In order to provide a fairer indication of prices available in retail size, traded prices in the size range of EUR 15,000-EUR 1 million (GBP 10,000-GBP 600,000), only, are covered. Closing quotes are based on standard dealer trade sizes.
Visitors to BondMarketPrices.com can select their own lists of bonds based on security category, currency, security type, type of issuer and also by individual issuer. Some of the bonds listed may not be available for sale to retail investors in some European jurisdictions and retail investors without expert knowledge will need to continue to seek advice from their financial advisors.
A guidance document is available to all visitors explaining how to use the site.