Lowest Bid-Ask Spreads on Treasuries

[Greg]

Question for the interested in the forum. I pulled these values from Fidelity for a 30 year bond.

912810QY7  UNITED STATES TREAS BDS 2.75000% 11/15/2042
            Bid                                   Ask
Price                 98.265         Price         98.359
Yield / Type 2.836 / M         Yield / Type 2.831 / M

I'm looking at getting a new IRA for diversification but was trying to see if one brokerage had a lower bid-ask spread or that had a lower ask value in general (so you'd get more bond for the money, albeit a small amount due to whatever the brokerage's commissions are).

Any one know of if another brokerage has either a lower bid-ask spread/ lower ask value in general for someone other than Fidelity? Thanks.

[Greg]

Linking another thread on bid-ask.

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ic.php?t=8

Topic: TD Ameritrade vs Vanguard secondary bond prices

[whatchamacallit]

The formatting is horrible but this is from Vanguard.

Bid vs ask is 96.964 to 97.050


Looks like Vanguard maybe cheaper with ask being 0.08869271069675191 percent over bid vs 0.09565969572074909 % over bid for Fidelity?

Sell
Buy 9,000
9,000 1
1 912810QY7
Show less United States Treas Bds 2.75%11/15/42 2.750 11/15/2042 96.964
97.050 2.902
2.898
2.902
2.898


Bid side Ask side
Order Quantity Min. quantity Price Yield to
worst
Sell 9,000 1 96.964 2.902
Sell 1,000 1 96.851 2.908
Sell 50 1 96.500 2.926

Order Quantity Min. quantity Price Yield to
worst
Buy 9,000 1 97.050 2.898
Buy 2,000 1 97.312 2.885
— — — — —

[Tortoise]

I'm sure the bid-ask spread fluctuates a certain amount from day to day, and even at different times throughout a given day. So the fact that nathanh's Vanguard prices were posted 2 days after Greg's Fidelity prices probably means the two aren't an apples-to-apples comparison.

To really have a fair comparison, you'd probably need to look at the bid-ask spreads for the various brokerages within a few minutes of each other on the same day.