Knowledge Center

Bond Maturity - Bond Tracker

Scottrade's Bond Tracker tool offers several methods to help existing clients manage their bond portfolios. This self-directed tool lets users create bond portfolios and build bond ladders based on existing holdings, or create watch lists based on current bond offerings. Creating a bond portfolio that aligns with your financial goals can help you:

  • Make informed investment decisions.
  • Manage risk in different interest rate environments.
  • Build bond ladders to help you more effectively diversify.

What Can You Do with Bond Tracker?

  • Create a bond portfolio based on your current positions, a new portfolio based on bonds you select, or a combination of the two.
  • Review maturity/cash flow reports based on the positions entered.
  • Buy additional bonds to add to a current position.
  • Sell a current position.
  • Review depth of market on both the offer and bid side (if a market exists).

How Do You Use Bond Tracker?

GET STARTED

Launch Scottrade Bond Tracker Tool

Log into your Scottrade® account, go to the Trade tab and choose CDs & Bonds from the left menu. Click Bond Tracker under the drop down menu for bonds.

Create Your Bond Portfolio

To use the Bond Tracker tool, you will need to create your bond portfolio in one of three ways. Be sure to click Calculate/Save to update your information and any changes.

Manually:

  1. Click Add To Portfolio to add start building a bond portfolio.
  2. Fill in the bond Quantity and CUSIP. You can use the CUSIP Lookup function to search for bonds by issue, coupon or maturity. CUSIPs for your existing holdings are located on the Positions page.
  3. Complete your portfolio by clicking Add Bonds.
  4. In the New Portfolio Name dialog box, create a name for your portfolio.

Using Bond Search from the Corporate or Municipal Bond search page:

  1. Type in the issuer or other criteria on the Bond Search page.
  2. Click the Find Bondsbutton.
  3. On the results page, place a check in the check boxes to the left of the offerings in which you are interested.
  4. Scroll to the bottom and select Add Selected Bonds to Portfolio on the left to either add selected bonds to an existing portfolio or create a new portfolio.
  5. After selecting either new or existing, scroll to the right and click Add Bonds to Portfolio button.
  6. You will be directed to the Bond Tracker Application where you will see the bonds you selected.

Importing an Existing Portfolio:

  1. Click Portfolio Import.
  2. Name the portfolio you are importing.
  3. Be sure to review the File Guide to prepare the file prior to importing.
  4. Click Import and your report will appear on the right side of your screen.

ANALYZE
The Bond Tracker results will appear in a detailed on-screen report. The name you assigned to the portfolio will appear under Portfolio List. A Principal Cash Flow graph will appear on the top right. Details of the cusips you enter will appear under the Portfolio Details heading and include fields such as Quantity, Coupon and Maturity. You can filter the portfolio by selecting any of the underlined headings within the Portfolio Details section.


ACT
In the Portfolio Details portion of any report, there are a number of tools that allow you to implement changes from within the report. These tool buttons include:

  • DELETE – To remove a bond from your portfolio. Be sure to click CALCULATE/SAVE to save changes.
  • REPRICE PORTFOLIO – To update the Portfolio Details with current price of offerings in the market (if available).
  • EXPORT – To export the portfolio details to an Excel document for the particular CUSIP.
  • SELL – To take you to a prepopulated Online Bid Wanted page.
  • BUY – To take you directly to the Offerings page for the particular CUSIP.
  • SHOW DEPTH OF MARKET – To show all offerings and bids currently on the system.

For more information and educational articles on bonds — including bond types, bond investing, bond risks, variations on bonds and how to measure a bond's value — please visit the Knowledge Center.

GENERATE REPORT

Clicking this button creates a separate portfolio report, which will appear in a pop up. The report contains three sections:

  • Portfolio – This section provides a description of each bond along with current offer price (if available) and yield. Also shows pie charts that break down Bond Type, Maturity Allocation and Rating Allocation.
  • Maturity – This section includes both a bar graph and descriptive section showing when the bonds within the portfolio will mature and the principal value of each bond.
  • Bond Ladder –This section provides a bar graph indicating monthly interest income and a descriptive section showing detailed information of interest payments for each bond.

Bonds involve risks including, but not limited to interest rate risk, reinvestment risk, inflation risk, call risk, liquidity risk, credit risk, market risk, default risk, event risk, and a risk of loss of principal. New issue offerings are sold by prospectus or offering circular available at www.scottrade.com. Investors should read these carefully.

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The information and content provided in the Scottrade® Knowledge Center is for informational and/or educational purposes only. The information presented or discussed is not, and should not be considered, a recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation of an offer by, Scottrade or its affiliates to buy, sell or hold any security or other financial product or an endorsement or affirmation of any specific investment strategy. You are fully responsible for your investment decisions. Your choice to engage in a particular investment or investment strategy should be based solely on your own research and evaluation of the risks involved, your financial circumstances and your investment objectives. Scottrade, Inc. and its affiliates are not offering or providing, and will not offer or provide, any advice, opinion or recommendation of the suitability, value or profitability of any particular investment or investment strategy.