This section explores investment-related sites on the Internet. Each issue highlights an area that may be of interest
to Computerized Investing readers. We welcome referrals to sites you have discovered.
Bond
Resources
With the market downturn of 2008
firmly in the rearview mirror, most investors are cautiously optimistic about
the markets. However, many investors
are still trying to protect themselves
by holding cash, bonds and other
income-generating holdings.
Equities are great for growth and
should be a part of all investors’ portfolios, but it is prudent to keep a portion of your holdings in bonds and
preferred holdings. As you approach
retirement, your portfolio should be
weighted increasingly toward income
in order to protect yourself from market fluctuations and generate cash for
living expenses.
Most investors have a solid idea
of where to find fundamental and
technical research on stocks, mutual
funds and even exchange-traded
funds, but the same cannot be said
for information on bonds.
Here, we focus on what we believe
InvestinginBonds.com
to be the top three online destinations for bond and preferred stock
investors.
InvestinginBonds.com
www.investinginbonds.com
InvestinginBonds.com is a comprehensive website providing bonds
market news and data. The main
page displays the broad market index, Treasury yield curve, and global
sovereign index, along with recent
market headline news and commentary. Separate sections provide data
on the municipal, government and
agency, corporate, and mortgage and
asset-backed securities markets.
Clicking on Bond Markets & Prices
takes you to a useful area of the
website where you can see definitions
of most of the common bond markets
and an overview of each separate
bond market section (municipals,
government/agency, corporate and
mortgage/asset-backed). Selecting a
section and clicking on Ticker will
bring up the 10 bonds that were
traded most recently, along with
their coupons, maturity dates, price
yields and quantities. This information is automatically updated for the
most recent bonds. Additionally, you
can search for bonds from a specific
issuer or state. Indexes for both corporate bonds and municipals are also
provided.
After you find the bond you are
searching for, clicking on the CUSIP
identification number will bring up
additional data, including ratings,
sector and subsector, maturity and
coupon, and call date and price. Furthermore, the most recent trades for
that particular bond are also listed.
The News & Commentary section
of the site offers worldwide bond
market news.
A taxable/tax-free yield calculator and a general-purpose calculator
are also included on the site. In the
taxable/tax-free calculator, simply
enter the name of your state, your net
taxable income and your filing status,
and a table will display the tax-free
yield that is equivalent to various
taxable yields. The general-purpose
bond calculator determines yield,
duration, convexity and cash flows
after you supply price, coupon rate
and maturity dates.
Yahoo! Finance Bonds Center
http://finance.yahoo.com/bonds
The Yahoo! Finance Bonds Center
lists the current U.S. Treasury bond
rates on the main page along with
a market summary and top news.
Bond market news is provided by
Briefing.com and includes news on
the Federal Reserve and interest
rates. Composite bond rates are given
for municipal and corporate bonds
across all credit ratings.
A bond screener allows you to
select a type of bond to search for:
Treasury, Treasury zero-coupon, corporate or municipal (by state). In addition, there are seven data points for
narrowing down a search, where you
select the minimum and maximum
10
Computerized Investing
value. A few quick searches yielded
a universe of approximately 30,000
bonds at any given time.
The bond lookup tool allows you to
search for a bond by its name. If you
are unsure, typing in the issuer will
provide bonds that are issued by that
particular entity. Data on the bond is
provided by ValuBond and includes
price, coupon rate, maturity date,
yield-to-maturity, current yield, Fitch
rating and callability.
Yahoo! Finance’s Education Center
includes a section on bonds. Basic
learning tools describe what bonds
are, what you can expect from a
change in interest rates, and the risk
versus reward of investing in bonds.
For investors looking for more advanced bond education, articles on
bond laddering and global bonds are
also available.
Yahoo! Finance Bonds Center
The Wall Street Journal Online
online.wsj.com
The Wall Street Journal Online’s
bond section is very robust and covers bonds comprehensively. The main
page lists the Treasury yields for each
maturity length and provides recent
price change. Charts show the Treasury yield curve, labor-swap curve
and U.S. consumer rates. Consumer
money rates such as the prime, 30year fixed mortgage, home-equity
loan and 48-month new car loan
rates, along with their 52-week highs
and lows, are all presented on the
main page.
The most active corporate bonds
are listed on the corporate bonds
page. In addition, offerings of the
major government agencies are listed
with their yield. Coupons and yields
for guaranteed investment contracts,
mortgage-backed securities, taxexempt bonds, TIPS and Treasury
Strips are all provided, as is a weekly
snapshot of the key rates.
A bond calendar reports upcoming
offerings, including the total offering amount and ratings from Fitch,
Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.
Second Quarter 2011
The Wall Street Journal Online
11