Investors get real-time view of UK bond market activity for the first time (fca.org.uk)
85 points by monkeydust 10 hours ago
monooso 4 hours ago
I spent the entire day yesterday trying to set up some automated monitoring of my investments, only to discover most UK market information is locked behind stupid-money APIs.
Anything that improves that situation is a positive.
inigyou 3 hours ago
That's normal in markets and it even makes sense.
Think about it: shouldn't the market be funded by charging fees to the extremely wealthy participants? The alternative is that it's taxpayer funded, which is a tax subsidy to extremely wealthy participants.
dv_dt 3 hours ago
Seems like a bit of a false dichotomy- other alternatives are regulatory requirements or taxes that force or allow the api to be provisioned
inigyou 3 hours ago
doikor an hour ago
Most if not all stock markets are for profit corporations making a lot of profit. They could have api fees at 0 and still make a profit.
monooso 3 hours ago
Several such APIs include the equivalent data for US markets in their free tier, for personal use.
1234letshaveatw 3 hours ago
Only the extremely wealthy participate in the UK? That is most certainly not the case in the US, where your average salaried employee has most of their retirement invested in the market
inigyou 2 hours ago
macleginn 2 hours ago
infecto 3 hours ago
dismalaf 2 hours ago
If it's just for personal use see if your bank/broker has an API for market information. Most do even if it's not advertised.
Also some resellers of market information are pretty affordable for personal use.
stephenheron 7 hours ago
https://ets-connect.co.uk/ < Slightly more information here.
trebligdivad 4 hours ago
I love that it's a 'tape' - I assume in reference to the early telegraph tapes/tickers: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co33749...
gjvc 3 hours ago
standard terminology remains standard
OJFord an hour ago
Sometimes. We still say 'terminals' (or pedantically 'terminal emulators') but we no longer 'dial up' webpages, we started 'loading' them instead.
gjvc 41 minutes ago
greengreengrass 5 hours ago
Disappointing that it seems difficult to actually sign up for – "real-time view" hidden behind layers of legalese and licensing, although it's pleasing to see the fees are effectively nothing for individuals or small firms. They're not exactly in the SaaS-era of live demos or trivial sign-ups for immediate access, are they?
Why do we insist on actually useful interfaces into the economy and banking system being hidden behind such bureaucratic complexity? It's like the Open Banking gift that keeps on giving – if it were truly "Open", I'd have an API I could actually use to talk to all of my banks, rather than what feels like a closed shop (certainly for the average retail individual who just wants a feed from their bank).
cjs_ac 5 hours ago
There’s also a lot of bureaucracy involved in participating in the gilt market directly, rather than using an intermediary.
https://www.dmo.gov.uk/investor-information/retail-investors...
I don’t think the Treasury really wants to deal with amateurs.
pjc50 5 hours ago
No, but you can hold them through the standard range of intermediaries and still get the tax advantage.
NS&I offer a range of retail products - https://www.nsandi.com/guaranteed-returns is a good option but does NOT come with the tax exemption.
monkeydust 4 hours ago
Pawenniag 5 hours ago
That's probably true
Pawenniag 5 hours ago
This is the frustrating pattern with a lot of "open" financial infrastructure
Pawenniag 5 hours ago
Whether the data will actually be affordable and usable enough for smaller participants or whether it mainly improves tooling for institutions that already had decent access
gib444 7 hours ago
Will this help us see how badly Burnham bungs bonds in real time? I jest I jest
AdamN 5 hours ago
Burnham being PM is already pretty well priced in. When he walked back comments a few weeks ago they corrected and my sense is that the market understands that unless there until actual laws or budgets are promulgated, what is said by Burnham isn't really market moving.
andy_ppp 5 hours ago
What is he going to do without the bond markets - the UK is in so much debt we basically need to jump however high they tell us to, unless he plans to default which would destroy the global financial system and destroy the UK for decades. The only way I can see out of this is to absolutely frack the crap out of the UK and push for more North Sea oil drilling. But we definitely won't do that so maybe we'll try a bit of fascism instead? I'm very unconvinced taxing rich people is possible (unless it is a global agreement) - most of their money can be moved into tax havens and other jurisdictions where HMRC will struggle to tax them.
mathieuh 4 hours ago
monkeydust 5 hours ago
Forgeties79 4 hours ago
gib444 4 hours ago
How do they know what he will do to the economy before even he does? That's impressive
I wasn't referring to his becoming PM but what he does during the premiership, you know, the more important part
inigyou 3 hours ago
monkeydust 6 hours ago
mark_l_watson 5 hours ago
Potentially, the raising interest rates because investors don’t trust the long term stability of the UK economic system (more spending on pro-war activities, sluggish economic growth, and higher than expected government borrowing) will crash their financial system.
I hope I don’t sound too selfish but I am a USA citizen, and I would rather worry about my own country’s medium-term financial future.
jalev 5 hours ago
The UK's financial system made it out battered but bruised in the 70s which were a magnitude worse than what we have right now (double digit unemployment, inflation double digit, interest rates at like 15%, an IMF bailout...). Any talk of the British financial system collapsing is as realistic as the S&P500 dropping 50% in the near future: sure it can happen but the chances are so statistically small you have a better chance of winning the lottery.
abecedarius 4 hours ago
National debt to GDP was much lower in the 70s.
You might be right that near-term disaster is unlikely, but comparing to a lottery win is ridiculous. Orders of magnitude off.
arethuza 44 minutes ago
noir_lord 4 hours ago
If I was American I’d be worried about the US as well.
You elected a circus.
cryptonym 4 hours ago
Let's play a game
> Potentially, the raising interest rates because investors don’t trust the long term stability of the [Guess the country] economic system (more spending on pro-war activities, sluggish economic growth, and higher than expected government borrowing) will crash their financial system.
alex_duf 4 hours ago
>I hope I don’t sound too selfish but I am a USA citizen
The rest of the world is getting tired of worrying about the US's economical situation, whether it the dotcom bubble, the sub-primes, or now the potential AI bubble.
So apologies for being blunt here, but yes it does sound selfish to me
mark_l_watson 4 hours ago
Yes, I do sound like a jerk. Difficult though to not worry about local bullshit a lot more than other country’s bullshit. While I care for every person on our planet, I spend more time thinking about the future of my children and grandchildren.