Gyroscopic Investing

It appears that the same bond from TD Ameritrade is about 75 cents more per $100. The bonds showed the same CUSIP.

TD Ameritrade appears to be selling for 99.746 while Vanguard is selling for 99.00.

Is this already known that it is more expensive to buy through TD Ameritrade or am I reading it wrong?

I wasn't able to take screenshots but here is the data I copied from each website:

TD Ameritrade data:

912810QX9

9000
5

T-BOND (30YR)
Non Callable

2.750

08-15-2042

2.762

99.746


Vanguard data:

1 912810QX9
Show more United States Treas Bds 2.75%08/15/42 2.750 08/15/2042 98.921
99.000 2.804
2.800
2.804
2.800

Interesting.

I just checked Schwab and for that CUSIP, there are 9 listed lots (of various sizes) priced from 98.92188 to 99.08203.

Are we simply seeing various asks from individual sellers?  In effect, level II bond quotes?

These bond guys have the commission embedded within the pricing... One good reason to never buy individual munis or corporates, you will get your "fucking face ripped off" to quote an infamous bond trader...

Treasuries are liquid so the "face rippage" is less extreme. I don't get why we can't have a transparent exchange based system for retail investors... 

melveyr wrote: Treasuries are liquid so the "face rippage" is less extreme.

A 0.75% commission on a LTT seems pretty extreme to me! The person I spoke with at TDA said commission about "3/8%." I recently posted on this on the Treasury Bond Buying Tutorial, and this generated virtually no interest or discussion. 

BearBones wrote:

melveyr wrote: Treasuries are liquid so the "face rippage" is less extreme.

A 0.75% commission on a LTT seems pretty extreme to me! The person I spoke with at TDA said commission about "3/8%." I recently posted on this on the Treasury Bond Buying Tutorial, and this generated virtually no interest or discussion. 

Well don't ever get close to individual munis or corporates! These guys will take you for a ride.

Sketchy.

BearBones wrote:A 0.75% commission on a LTT seems pretty extreme to me! The person I spoke with at TDA said commission about "3/8%." I recently posted on this on the Treasury Bond Buying Tutorial, and this generated virtually no interest or discussion. 

Bump that thread... I'm pretty new here and must have missed it

Slotine wrote:

melveyr wrote: Treasuries are liquid so the "face rippage" is less extreme. I don't get why we can't have a transparent exchange based system for retail investors... 

Then they can't hide the spread

You might want to ask what the spread is too.  The bank brokerages tend to charge pretty wide spreads ~1.5% for LTTs and ~4% for strips here in Canada.  Given the PP needs rotation of LTTs to work properly, you might just end up doing as well - if not better - with a low-cost ETF.

Scotia iTrade (in Canada) is probably the best for purchasing bonds.  The bid/ask spread is around 0.3% plus a $25 commission, you also need a bond face value of at least $5000.  So roughly a 1.3% spread (0.3 + 0.5 + 0.5) on a $5000 round trip trade...over a ten year period that is 0.13%/year.

Slotine wrote: And ya, I got my face ripped off   Learning to live with it.

Have you considered GICs?  I feel like an 80 year old grandma when I buy them, but IMO they are a sweet deal.  For the life of me I cannot envision the government not backing the CDIC, and if there was a system wide failure then the banks would be nationalized (eg. Iceland, Sweden) or massive bailouts (eg 2008-2012).  If they didn't then we'd revert back to bartering, I'd have to think every attempt would be made to avoid this.

Hi,

sorry to ask here, but which brokers in USA are more SOLID ?

Thank you.