Bond Prices

You can always check the recent sellingprice of a stock online, but untilrecently, doing the same thing with bondprices was a lot harder. It got a bit easierwhen the Bond Market Association(www.investinginbonds.com) launchedits online Trace system, which originallytracked just 500 issues and had a 24-hourtime lag. Now the site provides price andyield data on 4200 bonds with just a 5-hour delay. Since most bond trades occurearly in the day, however, you can still geta feel for the market before the close ofbusiness. As with many purchases, themore you spend, the lower the markupshould be. Charging $102 for a $100bond may be okay on small lots, but thebroker's profit ought to be less when youput in a 6-figure buy order.