"Will" <westes-usc[at]noemail.nospam> writes:

- quote -

Fidelity. And you can place the limit in terms of either price or YTM.
I'm sure there are plenty of others.

--
Rich Carreiro rlc-news[at]rlcarr.com

------ Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive
to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting
guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to
which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE
MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the
Newsgroup.

Are there any (large and very financially sound) brokers who allow customers
to place limit orders on their bond trades? Some of the corporate debt is
so illiquid that you get one trade every few hours (or days!), and the
prices across different trades can be *enormous*. In a big sell off like
the one we are having, it would be interesting to test the market and place
bids for illiquid bonds way below the last trade. I'm sure that some of
those limit trades would find takers in a market panic. Unfortunately,
several online brokers I queried refuse to work bond trades on a limit
order. They want to simply guess at an execution price and ask me a yes/no
to take or not take the trade.

Why do brokers do this? Assuming they aren't trying to skim points from
the actual execution, why should a bond trade be any different in theory
from a limit order on an illiquid stock? Customers should be able to
specify what they want and at what price they want it.

I'm hoping the experienced investors here who buy bonds can explain why this
archaic order system exists, and which brokers have the best technology for
trading bonds.

--
Will

------ Misc.invest.financial-plan is a moderated newsgroup where Moderators strive
to keep the conversations on-topic for financial planning. Other posting
guidelines include a request for brevity and another for trimming posts to
which we respond. For all of the other tips and suggestions, see "FROM THE
MODERATORS: Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan", a weekly post now on the
Newsgroup.