checked a bond on BondScanner and the last traded price was from 3 days ago. is that normal? feels like stale data
oh i thought that was a platform bug lol. so it’s actually just no trades happening?
yeah basically
some bonds barely trade
not like stocks where every second something moves
okay but then how do i even know what the current fair price is
Last traded price only tells you what the most recent transaction was, not what the bond is worth right now. For thinly traded bonds this gap can be significant. Platforms like NSE show the same thing. It’s a feature of how bond markets work, not a data issue.
This is one of the core differences between equity and bond markets. Bonds are traded over-the-counter in most cases, not on a continuous exchange order book. So price discovery is slower and less frequent. Yield is a more reliable comparison metric here than price.
so i should be looking at yield instead of price to judge if it’s a good deal?
Exactly. Price tells you the last deal that happened. Yield tells you what return you’re getting at today’s price. Even with a stale last traded price, the platform will show you current yield based on that price and remaining cash flows. That’s what matters for your decision.
wait so the yield shown is still accurate even if price is old?
The yield shown is calculated from the displayed price. If the price is old, the yield is too. The more useful thing is to compare YTM across similar bonds. That helps you gauge relative value even in a low-liquidity instrument.
tldr: old price = low liquidity, not broken platform. use yield to compare, not price