Hi folks, I currently trade mostly futures but would like to wade more into the cash fixed income space, particularly sovereign bonds. I would require leverage as am looking to do some curve trades. I am currently with Interactive Brokers and notice that the spreads on government bonds, even very liquid markets like US ten year treasuries, are much significantly wider than for the equivalent futures. IB says that they bake into the price the bond trading platform fees. I am wondering how different brokers are from one another in this regard and which brokers other fixed income traders would recommend.
Bond brokers
- Thread starter mr_sandman
- Start date
Check out Saxo, I believe they were the pioneers in online bond trading at some point and they have a large variety of different bonds.
do they offer bond smart routing? I cannot find this kind of information in their official website
I believe smart routing is a term adopted by IB. As far as I know you can execute orders on bonds either "online" or "offline".
Online orders are routed to a network between several liquidity providers in bonds, bond desks in banks and such. Market and limit orders in some cases. If market order isn't executed within 45 seconds it will be killed.
Offline orders are routed to Saxo banks own bond desk.
I'm not a customer of Saxo nor have I ever traded bonds with them. But I have experience with the firms brokerage business. So I'd say their version of smart routing is the online routing.
Personally when I traded the basis, I used Cantor-Fitzgerald, Brokertec, and at times Garban (ICAP). {{ These are the REAL dealers, btw }} The bid/ask for OTR issues will be just about as tight as the futures during US trading hours. The bigger Chicago FCMs will offer access to the US Sovereign Debt Markets.
It will most certainly take more capital than what you're used to with futures. Instead of asking me - call Advantage, Rosenthal Collins Group, or RJ O'Brien and ask.
If you live outside the EU, you will not be able to trade German debt because they're jackasses about it.
It will most certainly take more capital than what you're used to with futures. Instead of asking me - call Advantage, Rosenthal Collins Group, or RJ O'Brien and ask.
If you live outside the EU, you will not be able to trade German debt because they're jackasses about it.
Hi Bone,
I would like to see which of these brokers provide the tightest spread for such bonds?
http://finra-markets.morningstar.co...il.jsp?ticker=FAHDG4576939&symbol=AHDG4576939
and
http://finra-markets.morningstar.com/BondCenter/BondDetail.jsp?ticker=C651833&symbol=FTR4361327
I would be grateful if you could also mentioned which one has the best online platform (mobile phone if any?).
Many thanks.
ps I called up all the names you mentioned here and none of them will open for individual client. Where are you located? London? or Continental Europe?
I want to move my bonds from IBKR as the spreads are unprofessionally wide.
I used to trade corporate bonds at some Swiss Bank in Singapore and the banker was pocketing huge commissions (read: stealing money) from me (beyond its standard charges and definitely much higher than the agreed commissions). Despite my complaints to her, she continued on stealing money from me, until I traded odd lots that my trades appear uniquely on the finra page. She was clueless that all of my bond trades appeared in the finra page. The bank neither admits its wrong doing but refunded $12k to me (about half what she stole) and asked me to sign an agreement that I would not disclose the case to anyone and told me to move to other bank/broker. That's how I stuck with the bonds with IBKR.
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I am in the US.
I wish you good luck finding a trading platform. I am unable to research this for you due to my own time restrictions.
I wish you good luck finding a trading platform. I am unable to research this for you due to my own time restrictions.