Financial Samurai - Forums

General Investing => Fixed Income Focused => Topic started by: sfpf on August 18, 2018, 04:50:05 PM

Title: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: sfpf on August 18, 2018, 04:50:05 PM
I'm thinking about starting some positions in bonds to add to my stock and ETF portfolio. How did you get started and what platform do you use?
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: sfpf on August 20, 2018, 05:17:49 PM
I use Fidelity and have been happy with them. Trading treasuries is free if you do it yourself online. I never call trades in over the phone, pretty sure they charge for that.
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: gravkis on September 09, 2018, 02:21:48 PM
I have been using Fidelity & Interactive Brokers for past several years
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: Sam on September 09, 2018, 10:04:55 PM
I use Fidelity, but the fees to buy individual bonds is expensive. I think it's something like $10 for $10,000 worth of bonds.

But at least Fidelity has about 70 commission free ETFs with low fees.
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: Leigh on September 10, 2018, 02:33:41 PM
I also use Fidelity.  I invest for my parents and they are extremely risk averse, as in ....they only want state muni bonds. We put everything in a mixed basket of GO bonds AAA or within two rankings and they earn 5% on all of their monies. I don't care about the yield to maturity because they aren't reinvesting, just using the monies to pay for hair cuts, rent, groceries and medicine. 



Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: Eric on September 10, 2018, 04:36:29 PM
For Fixed Income - this is where managed funds work very well.  Dollar for dollar, trading bonds is much more expensive than trading stock. Lack of exchanges, basic electronic trading and a lot of the market still being traded over voice (for sizeable trades) are key deterrents.

Outside of government bonds, and particular for corporate bonds/credit using a fund manager makes a lot of sense. New issue bonds (which occurs much more frequently than IPOs for stocks due to fixed vs indefinite maturities) generally carry new issue premiums, and these bonds are allocated almost exclusively to professional/non-retail investors. This makes it easy for bond funds to outperform the index, and outperform an individual trying to build the same portfolio.

For US treasuries - best way to buy them is direct. However, there aren't many cases where it really makes more sense to buy treasuries than invest in a high yielding bank CD- particularly as banks are much more sound now than 10 years ago.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tbonds/res_tbond_buy.htm
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: Orphan on September 22, 2018, 08:37:09 AM
I use Hennion & Walsh. They are based in NJ. I don't why I picked them but that is who I use....
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: sevenplaces on September 26, 2018, 07:07:21 AM
I use Fidelity for stocks, ETFs and bond funds.
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: jeff on October 12, 2018, 07:38:38 AM
Quoting a comment from your post today, Sam:

QuoteCan you explain how you invest in bonds? It sounds like you are purchasing directly, because bond funds can lose money in a rising interest rate environment due to duration risk.

Are the ETFs a smarter way to buy bonds than purchasing them directly?

And separately this interests me as well, having only been in the market since 2009.

QuoteHow would you adjust this if you were in your early-to-mid 20s, with a 30 year retirement horizon.
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: AdamJane on October 30, 2018, 05:30:17 PM
In 2010, we started buy individual muni bonds from LPL, HSBC, Citibank to generate tax free passive income to start our journey to FI.

In 2015, after we learned that banks and LPL charges 1.25% to 2% more per bond, we started to buy individual muni bonds ONLY from Fidelity due to the low 0.10 markup fee which is $10 per $10,000.

Citibank charges 1.25% which is $125 per $10,000
HSBC charges 1.75% which is $175 per $10,000
LPL charged 2% which is $200 per $10,000 (this was several years)
Chase charged around 1.5% -1.75% more per bond than Fidelity

Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: bf312 on November 02, 2018, 08:26:55 AM
Quote from: Eric on September 10, 2018, 04:36:29 PM
For Fixed Income - this is where managed funds work very well.  Dollar for dollar, trading bonds is much more expensive than trading stock. Lack of exchanges, basic electronic trading and a lot of the market still being traded over voice (for sizeable trades) are key deterrents.

Outside of government bonds, and particular for corporate bonds/credit using a fund manager makes a lot of sense. New issue bonds (which occurs much more frequently than IPOs for stocks due to fixed vs indefinite maturities) generally carry new issue premiums, and these bonds are allocated almost exclusively to professional/non-retail investors. This makes it easy for bond funds to outperform the index, and outperform an individual trying to build the same portfolio.

For US treasuries - best way to buy them is direct. However, there aren't many cases where it really makes more sense to buy treasuries than invest in a high yielding bank CD- particularly as banks are much more sound now than 10 years ago.
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tbonds/res_tbond_buy.htm

I agree with what Eric said here. Of note, certain municipal bond issuerers will give retail investors priority over institutional buyers like banks, insurance companies, and bond funds; either by allowing retail orders before institutional orders, or mandating that they be given first and highest priority. 

I remember the State of California running ads on AM radio and Pandora streaming prior to issuing bonds back around 2014 when I was living in SF.
Title: Re: What platform do you use to purchase bonds?
Post by: SteveGood on December 26, 2019, 10:09:13 PM
Hi,


What do you think about PMS services? Does anyone have a good idea about invest in PMS?.