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Lower-Cost Sources for Fixed-Income Market Data

Article Quant Q&A · Author: Probilitator
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Summary

The document collects suggestions for sourcing fixed-income data when a Bloomberg terminal is too costly or unavailable. The requested coverage includes swaption and cap quotes across strikes and tenors, as well as swap curves, with an emphasis on modular pricing or access to only selected product categories. Suggestions include competing financial-data platforms, exchange-published swap curves and quotes, dealer portals for clients, and trade-reporting data that can show recent swap activity.

The replies offer leads rather than a systematic comparison. They do not establish which services currently cover every requested instrument, how reliable or timely the data are, or what access costs in a particular market or institution. Some suggestions distinguish terminal subscriptions from additional real-time market-data fees; client access and free reported-trade feeds may also have different coverage from calibrated quote surfaces. A researcher should confirm product coverage, licensing, history, latency, and total cost directly before relying on a source.

Key ideas

  • The data need described is focused on fixed-income quotes and curves rather than broad equity coverage.
  • Alternative sources include competing terminals, exchange data, dealer portals, and swap trade reports.
  • A terminal subscription may not include real-time exchange data, which can carry separate fees.
  • Reported swap activity is not necessarily equivalent to a complete set of tradable quotes or calibration inputs.
  • The recommendations are anecdotal and require current checks of coverage, access terms, and cost.

Tags

Fixed incomeDerivatives pricingMarket microstructure
Full text
# Bloomberg alternatives for fixed income data


# Bloomberg alternatives for fixed income data












I am looking for a (hopefully significantly cheaper) alternative to bloomberg - primarily for fixed income data. Perhaps some survice that has a more modular fee structure (so that I only have to pay for more or less what I need)

> It should at least provide: Quotes for swaptions and caps (different trikes, tenors etc.) Curves swap-curves etc

Motivation: I hardly ever work with equity data and mostly need fixed income quotes to calibrate my models etc. Unfortunately my department does not have it's own terminal (due to budgetary reasons) and I always have to bum data off some co-worker (or use his/her terminal - mostly late at night). My reasoning: if I can show a viable and cheap Bloomberg alternative for the data I actually need, my superiors might reconsider.

## Answer by Student tea (score 5)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/11454

Macrobond, a swedish company might be something to consider.

http://www.macrobond.com/

## Answer by user12348 (score 4)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/11436

CME group has free Swap curves. It also seems that they have quotes on the product feature page. Hope this works for you, -if it does, maybe you can comment about the costs when you find out. Thanks.

## Answer by chollida (score 4)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/11521

Reuters is making a huge push with their `Eikon` terminals. I think their prices are under NDA but you can often get one at a big discount to the $1700/month the `Bloomberg` charges and they are starting to close the feature gap.

You'll still need to pay the market data fees if you want real time quotes, but those fees can often be in the low 100/month range if you only need a few product categories.

## Answer by Helin (score 2)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/11511

If you're on the buy-side, you could also ask whether any of your counter parties may have what you need. For example, when it comes to fixed income data, Barclays Live and Morgan Markets (free to clients) may very well be better.

## Answer by GTWilliams (score 1)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/29649

The DTCC provides a free near-real-time swap activity here: https://rtdata.dtcc.com/gtr/dashboard.do

You can subscribe to this service via RSS Feeds and mine it as needed. Swap trades must be reported by the sell side, so you can see near-real-time activity as it occurs.

Hope this helps.

## Answer by Jorisdrees (score 1)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/49153

https://www.money.net/ is what I like to use it can be used in your browser and they have a 14 day trial to see if you like it.

Its relatively cheap and nice to use.

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This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.