The launch of Bloomberg’s RMB Bond Suite is an extension of the company’s broader strategic focus on China’s fixed income market, following the recent inclusion of Chinese bonds into its global fixed income indices
Bloomberg today announced the launch of its new RMB Bond Suite, a set of advanced fixed income investment tools for China’s vast bond market, now the world’s third-largest debt market valued at over $9 trillion. Bloomberg’s RMB Bond Suite covers rate and credit and includes critical fixed income data, real-time curves, and economic indicators, combined with Bloomberg’s powerful analytics.
“As China’s burgeoning interbank bond market continues to open up to foreign participation, global investors need an increasingly sophisticated set of tools to help them gain deeper insight and an edge into its market opportunities,” said Ee Chuan Ng, Bloomberg’s head of China. “By bringing our deep fixed income expertise and heritage to China, we believe the RMB Bond Suite will enhance market transparency, and redefine the workflow for both onshore and offshore investors.”
Over the last year, China has taken steps to open up its bond market while Chinese financial regulators focus on deleveraging and risk mitigation in the financial sector. The deleveraging campaign has driven volatility in China’s bond market, caused yields to rise and widened credit spreads. The RMB Bond Suite gives investors a set of tools to perform deeper market analysis, thereby uncovering opportunities for trading and hedging.
The RMB Bond Suite features a China brokers page, or MOSB CN <GO>, with real-time trade data from five money brokers¹ providing the most liquidity. It also includes bond issuance data, company fundamental information, market-recognized league tables, market share analysis, real-time benchmark yield curves, news headlines, PBOC’s open market operations calculator, bond futures pricing tools and comprehensive credit analytics.
Powered by Bloomberg’s analytics, portfolio managers can now view historical yield movement of bonds, discover the most liquid bond of each tenor or across the whole market, link this data into their trading workflow and build customized curves of selected bonds.
“Portfolio managers and traders now have an essential set of fixed income tools that can enable them to have a micro and a macro view of both the domestic fixed income market and overseas markets,” said Dr. Luo Feng, General Manager of Financial Markets at China Zheshang Bank. “One of the best aspects of the Bloomberg’s RMB Bond Suite is how it supports the entire workflow – from fixed income price discovery, data, curves, analysis, and news.”
Based on a Bloomberg Singapore Buyside forum in March 2017, 59% of market participants say they are actively exploring to invest in the China bond market, and 29% say they are already investing in the market. The size of China’s local currency bonds currently equals a fifth of the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index, a $45 trillion benchmark. According to China’s central bank data, by the end of 2016, over 400 foreign financial institutions have invested in China’s bond market, with a total investment of about $120 billion (or 852 billion yuan).
1 The five money brokers are Tullett Prebon Sitico (China) Co., China Credit BGC Money Broking Co., Cfets-ICAP International Money Broking Co., Ping An Tradition International Money Broking Co. and Citic Central Tanshi Money Brokering Co.