Importing Bond Information

[waugustine]

I like the capabilities of 10.0 regarding bonds but I was wondering if there is a way to import bond info instead of keying it in? Data like coupon, payment dates, etc. I have quite a few bonds and it would take too much time to keep the bonds current.
Thanks,
Bill

[Mark]

Hi Bill,

Sorry, no, there is currently no way to import this data. Do you have all of this info in a file that you want to import, or are you looking for an automated way to retrieve it, kind of like pricing data is retrieved?

[waugustine]

Thanks for the reply. Ideally I would like to get it from my brokers files but that is next to impossible because most of the info like coupon, payment dates, etc are carried in the description. I have an excel file that I could import but the software does not import excel (at least from what I can see). Thanks for your help. Bill

[Mark]

Hi Bill,

You can currently import prices and transactions from Excel, but not bond investment properties. If there is a good source of this information available that you know of please let me know. We could consider adding an import option for this data.

[waugustine]

You can go to sites like municipalbonds.com or www.investinginbonds.com where you can get the coupon and maturity date. Since munis pay every six months you can get the payment dates and amounts assuming that you have already imported or input the number of bonds held. You would not be able to get the actual yield from these sites but because you are able to import the price paid from your broker it is then possible to calculate the yield. This update would be great. thanks for listening, Bill

[waugustine]

I was just thinking that you could either do an import or just update the info just like the program does prices for stocks etc.

[Mark]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the ideas. This would be convenient to be able to retrieve all that info for your bonds.