Gyroscopic Investing

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.

Linking another thread on bid-ask.

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

Topic: TD Ameritrade vs Vanguard secondary bond prices

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
— — — — —

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.