SIFMA Makes Agency Bond Pricing Available to Individual Investors

The ""Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association"":http://www.sifma.org (SIFMA) is now carrying price data for approximately 25,000 federal agency bonds on its ""Investing in Bonds"":http://investinginbonds.com/marketataglance.asp?catid=33 Web site.

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The new data is available via a feed from the ""Financial Industry Regulatory Authority"":http://www.finra.org (FINRA) following an expansion of its Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE) to include debt issued by federal government agencies, government corporations, and the GSEs.

Investing in Bonds, a partnership between SIFMA members, SIFMA, and the SIFMA Foundation for Investor Education, provides real-time bond price information and a variety of market data, news, commentary, and educational content on how the U.S. bond markets work. The site was named one of two Kiplinger's 2009 Best Investing Websites.

""We are pleased to add even more information to our Investinginbonds.com Web site, which was created as a

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free, non-commercial site solely designed to help educate investors,"" said Rob Toomey, managing director and associate general counsel at SIFMA. ""The addition of government agency prices enriches the content already available on the site, making it an even better resource and a more effective way to promote transparency in the bond markets.""

Agency bonds are issued by two types of entities: the GSEs and federal government agencies. The proceeds are used to finance activities related to public purposes, such as homeownership.

Via an agency bond trade ticker on the Investing in Bonds site, users can view trade time, abbreviated issuer name, CUSIP number (the unique identifier for the security), coupon and maturity date, price, yield, and number of bonds traded, along with any notes.

The site also offers a list of the most heavily traded bonds over the last five trading days, or on the current trading day. Clicking on the number of trades will also show a trade-by-trade history for the security. The site also offers investors a ""run calculations"" function, which demonstrates how different prices would result in different yields.

SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., strives to bring together the shared interests of hundreds of securities firms, banks, and asset managers. The organization says its SIFMA Foundation is dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of the financial markets that strengthen economic opportunities across communities and increase individuals' access to the benefits of the global marketplace.