Global News, Data Vendor Rolls Out Chinese Bond Toolkit

Tom Burroughes

18 May 2017

Financial and business news and information service has launched its new RMB Bond Suite, which are investment tools for China's fast-growing bond market, now with a collective market value of more than $9 trillion.

The suite covers rate and credit, as wel data, econmic indicators and analytics from Bloomberg.

There is also a China brokers page with real-time trade data from five money brokers 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, the firm said in a statement.

The development of such a service is a sign of how the Communist country's move towards a form of capitalism, and its opening of investment channels, is driving innovation on a number of fronts, including around fixed income.

"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," Ee Chuan Ng, Bloomberg's head of China, said.

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.

A recent forum of "buyside" investors organised by the news service showed that 59 per cent of market participants say they are actively exploring to invest in the China bond market, and 29 per cent say they already do so.

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 total investment of about $120 billion.

"Over the medium to long term, China's onshore debt will inevitably become a significant part of global fixed income portfolios," Freddy Wong, Portfolio Manager at Fidelity International, who oversees the first private onshore bond fund launched by a global asset management firm in China, said.