Best Bond Datasets, Databases & APIs

What is Bond Data?

Bond data is a sub-category of fixed income data. It is data that provides information on bonds. Bonds are a representation of loans from investors to borrowing companies or governments. Bond data uses information from various market sources to give intelligence on bonds, how they perform and their prices. Bonds are a very valuable commodity in the securities markets, and so bond data gives informed analysis on risk management processes, valuations and price discovery. In summary, bond data gives all information on bonds and their overall presence in financial markets.

What is a Bond maturity date?

A bond is a fixed income instrument that is representative of a loan advanced by an investor to a borrower that may be either corporate or governmental. It is an I.O.U that is agreed upon by the lender and borrower that entails details of the loan and its payments. Part of the I.O.U is an agreement on the specific date when the original sum loaned will be pay. This date is the bond maturity date. This is the date upon which the principal amount of a bond, also referred to as “par value”, is to be paid in full.

What is FINRA Bond data?

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is an independent NGO that governs registered brokers and broker-dealer firms across the United States. Through an established system referred to as TRACE, FINRA offers the service of over-the-counter real-time distribution service for the fixed income market, brings transparency to the corporate and agency bond markets. Through a database of consolidated transaction data for all the eligible corporate bonds, FINRA distributes accurate and timely bond market data. TRACE offers bond data analysis, and consolidates it for easy access by the general public that can acquire it either through a bond data subscription service, or buying bond data online.

What is a Bond Data lake?

A data lake is a big data analytics conceptual framework that refers to a repository system that allows for storage of all structured and unstructured data from small scale to large scale. In this system, data is stored as it is, or can be stored after a run of different types of analytics that range from dashboards and visualizations to big data processing, real-time analytics, and machine learning techniques. In the same manner, a data lake can consist of bond information. Bond data lakes provide insightful information that can be acquired by interested parties through purchase of bond data for the purpose of identifying, and acting upon new opportunities that may be revealed in the bond market.

What is Morningstar Bond Data?

Morningstar bond data refers to information about bonds that is amassed, analysed and distributed by Morningstar Inc., a USA based financial services firm whose core purpose is to offer financial insights to investors who need technical information about the core facets of financial markets. As a specialist in financial services advisory role, Morningstar Inc. has partnered with a number of key financial institutions, such as FINRA, to provide information to investors in the bond market area. From its database of bonds, Morningstar offers potential investors the opportunity to shop for bond data. Users can compare the price of bond data according to the range and quality of data they wish to access for the whole purpose of empowering investors through research.

What is a Green Bond?

Climate change is a topic that continues to drive conversations about what the future holds for our planet, given the current level of pollution from industrial and domestic waste. A green bond is one such conversation topic and - attempt to halt - climate change. It is referred to as a type of fixed-income instrument that is designed to specifically raise money to support climate and environmental projects. Green bonds are exclusively asset-centered and supported by the issuance of entity’s balance sheet, so much so that they usually carry a similar credit rating as their issuer’s other debt commitments.

Why is Bond Data important?

Bond data offers an overview of bond prices on a daily basis. Daily bond price tracking is a critical indicator of the direction of interest rates, and the resultant prediction of the future economic activity. For investors, bond prices are a critical component of a well-controlled and diversified investment portfolio that drives towards a better investment yield. Bond data’s investment yield informs investors about issues concerning stock selection, to making decisions concerning mortgage refinancing. Thus, when investors make proper use of bond datasets, they are able to make informed financial decisions when acquiring bonds for the purpose of future enrichment.

How is Bond Data collected?

Bond data is collected from stock exchanges, financial markets and fixed income markets. Certain tools are deployed to capture market news and announcements, including scraping tools, automated systems and machine language tools. Bond data also comes directly from reports. These reports include information from sources such as the reports from the central bank, depositories reports, and reports from custodians’ accounts. This intelligence is collated and compiled into bond data feeds, which can then be used to make informed decisions on bonds in markets. The information in bond datasets is gathered from impartial sources, so as to avoid biased reports.

What are the attributes of Bond Data?

A bond data feed will provide a number of attributes. Typically, they should be:

Industry code: this is a description of the industry that the bond is from or operates in, such as energy or real estate.

Stock ticker: a stock ticker shows the pricing of bonds, as well as the price falls or rises in a trading window.

Maturity date: the maturity date represents how long a bond has been in the market, at what point it is mature enough to yield returns, and other date related information.

What is Bond Data used for?

Bond data is a type of fixed income data. This data can be used to create investment strategies that provide an edge or advantage for users over other players in the market. Having valuable information on bonds gives users an understanding of the market, and it can be useful in creating portfolios that are profitable. Investors use bond data in the investment decision-making process, especially at the point where risk management comes into play. Bond data can be used in the analysis of portfolios, helping to find and select the bonds that bring the best returns. Bond data is also used to influence decision making in investment based on the data available. Bond data can as well be for the enrichment of stock market analytics, with regards to economic analysis and academic research.

Where to find government Bond Data?

The distribution of government bond data is accomplished by a number of both public and private agencies that provide commercial bond datasets made available by bond data vendors. These agencies provide historical bond data or real-time bond data. Such providers in the USA include the FINRA site, which offers historical prices and yields on municipal bonds and corporate securities. The Federal Reserve site also offers access to a large amount of historical bond data for US Treasuries. Bloomberg also provides bond prices and yields for all bonds including government bonds. The cost of bond data when acquiring it from data vendors is highly dependent on the urgency of the request and the quality of details of the datasets provided.

How can a user assess the quality of Bond Data?

As is the same with other financial market and fixed income data, bond data’s quality relies on the intended usage and time of such usage. This means that the data must be instantly-usable for the current situation. This also means that bond data should not require heavy analysis with regards to applications in the real world. Bond data must undergo standardization before its distribution, in order to avoid any delays that may result from integration and decryption. If there are any delays when it comes to bond data delivery, a missed opportunity in investment may occur, as the market is constantly shifting.

Where can I buy Bond Data?

Data providers and vendors listed on Datarade sell Bond Data products and samples. Popular Bond Data products and datasets available on our platform are Reference bond data API, global coverage, 650K issues by Cbonds, EDI Municipal Bond Pricing Data US (+1.2m Bonds Covered, 8 Years History) by Exchange Data International, and Stamdata Bond Reference Data (“stamdata”) by Stamdata.

How can I get Bond Data?

You can get Bond Data via a range of delivery methods - the right one for you depends on your use case. For example, historical Bond Data is usually available to download in bulk and delivered using an S3 bucket. On the other hand, if your use case is time-critical, you can buy real-time Bond Data APIs, feeds and streams to download the most up-to-date intelligence.