Bond Rates in Orion

Why are Bond Rates Important?

  • Bond rates are required to calculate information for fixed income products such as estimated income, yield, yield to "X" (maturity, cost, worst, next call).


  • Add Bond Calls as you need them. Bond Calls are maintained by you, the advisor.


  • Reach out to the SME Products and Prices team if you see bonds on the Bonds Without Bond Rates audit for which you need bond rate information. 


What does Orion do with Bond Rates?

When a bond enters the Orion system for the first time, either because you buy into it or add a new account that holds the bond, it gets scrubbed onto a list (along with all the other bonds). Then, a service called HIS Markit that holds many bond details checks this list and retrieves the bond rate information. 


Next, a Products and Prices team member takes the information on that list for the bond from HIS Markit and uses web resources (ex. Interactive Data, Fidelity, Bloomberg) and bond best practices to fill in any missing information.


If HIS Markit is unable to find enough information for the Products and Prices team to move forward with their research, those bonds will be put on the Bonds Without Bond Rates audit with notes detailing why the bond rate information is not filled out.



View Bond Rate Information 

To view bond rate information, navigate to the Bond Product tab in the Products and Prices app. This is a special view that lists all bonds and CDs ever held in your database. Bond products are also viewable using the My Current Products tab, but the Bond Product view shows information specific to bonds, such as Coupon Rate, Day Count Method, and State. 

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Update Bond Rate Information 

There are two types of updates - Local and Global. Local updates include information you or someone at your firm provides for your specific database. An Orion team member must process global updates because they affect the bond globally for all firms holding that bond.

 

Local Updates

You have access to update bond calls, and you must add bond calls if you want to show the Yield to Maturity Worst calculation. Orion does not maintain bond calls. This is something that you need to add and maintain.


To add bond calls while you are in the Products and Prices app 

  • Right-click to edit the product.
  • Click on the Bond Call tab on the left.
  • Click on Add New in the upper right corner.
  • Fill in the Call Price and Call Date fields.
  • Click Save.
  • Click Save on the product. 

add a bond call

 


Please Note: This is the only instance in Orion where the bond par price is expressed as a function of 100 and not 1. Everywhere else in Orion, for bonds and CDs, par is expressed with 1, and then it is translated in terms of 100 on your reports. If you were to enter in a Call Price of 100, your reports would show a price of 100 * 100, which is incorrect. 



Custom Import

Create bond calls en masse using the Product Bond Call custom import. Please review the Legacy Custom Imports Tool section of the How-To and Overview: Custom Imports article for more details.


After downloading the template, fill out the columns accordingly: 


  • Product ID: The Product ID of the product you want to add a bond call to.
  • Call Date: The date for the bond call. 
  • Call Price: The price (in terms of 100) for the bond call.

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Global Updates

Orion maintains some global bond rate information, such as Coupon Rate, Maturity Date, and Day Count Method. Only certain members at Orion update these fields because they affect all databases that own the products. Submit a case to the Products and Prices team with the tickers you want to update for these types of requests.



Bonds Without Bond Rates Audit 

Access the Bonds without Bond Rates audit through the Quarter End Dashboard app and the Products and Prices app.

While you are viewing a specific dashboard in the Quarter End Dashboard app, the audit is under the Product Audit section. Click on the All Bonds link to view the audit. 


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In the Products and Prices app, click on the Bonds Without Bond Rates tab on the left sidebar. 


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This report (non-interactive table) shows all bonds that are missing information. The Notes column tells you why the bond is on this list. Our initial lookup process is automated, so just because a bond shows up on this list does not mean there is no information for it. If a bond is marked as Currently Owned, that means a client currently holds that bond and the report for that household is missing information until that information is filled in. If nothing is marked as Currently Owned, no action is needed. If you have bonds on this audit that clients currently own, reach out to the Products and Prices team and provide them the tickers to help you find the missing information. 


If the Products and Prices team cannot find the missing information using their sources, please supply the following pieces of information:


  • coupon rate
  • issue date
  • maturity date
  • accrual date
  • dated date
  • initial coupon date
  • payment frequency (ex. monthly, yearly, bi-yearly)
  • day count method 
  • state and/or federal taxability

Please Note: Since missing bond rate information can negatively impact your reports and it may take some time to find the information, it is best practice to review the Bonds without Bond Rates audit on a weekly or monthly basis.