Selling Municipal Bonds

[XBoxBoy]

Hopefully one of you financial guys on this board can help out.

My sister and I inherited a number of Maryland Municipal bonds and we’ve come to the conclusion that it would be best for us to sell them. What’s the best way to sell them?

They are currently in an account at Scottrade. We asked about selling them through scottrade and they provided us bids from their bond desk. But these bids are about 4-5% below what scottrade lists the value of the bonds. (Not the face value though which is different altogether) We were told that the values that show in our account are based on the last sale prices for these bonds, so the bids are about 4-5% lower than the last sale.

We asked if we could place offers to sell, but were told that they don’t do asks, only bids. Is this usual? If scottrade doesn’t do asks, who does? Would we need to go through a full service broker such as Morgan Stanley to sell them using asks? What would be an appropriate commission to pay for this service?

All advice gladly accepted.

XBoxBoy

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

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[patb]

Call the issuer, ask who is their primary dealer in these.

[patb]

Call the issuer, ask who is their primary dealer in these.

[patb]

Call the issuer, ask who is their primary dealer in these.

[patb]

Call the issuer, ask who is their primary dealer in these.

[patb]

Call the issuer, ask who is their primary dealer in these.

[CA renter]

We asked if we could place offers to sell, but were told that they don’t do asks, only bids. Is this usual? If scottrade doesn’t do asks, who does? Would we need to go through a full service broker such as Morgan Stanley to sell them using asks? What would be an appropriate commission to pay for this service?
—————

We use Fidelity for bonds, but do not have any municipal bonds at the moment (I think they are high risk, but who knows…the govt is bailing everyone else out). We can use electronic trading for the corporate, Treasury, and Agency bonds that we have, but also have Swiss Treasuries which have to be traded through their bond desk, as they are not very liquid. They also do not allow “ask” prices through the bond desk, at least on these bonds. We can just call them up at the open (5:30 a.m.) and ask them to get bids. Then, IF they get any bids, they will call us up sometime during that same day and let us know what the bids were. We can then accept or not accept the bid. If they don’t get a bid, or an acceptable bid, for the day, the “sell” order expires, and we have to do it all over again another day.

Good luck with selling your bonds! If you find a better, less expensive way to go, please post it! 🙂

[CA renter]

We asked if we could place offers to sell, but were told that they don’t do asks, only bids. Is this usual? If scottrade doesn’t do asks, who does? Would we need to go through a full service broker such as Morgan Stanley to sell them using asks? What would be an appropriate commission to pay for this service?
—————

We use Fidelity for bonds, but do not have any municipal bonds at the moment (I think they are high risk, but who knows…the govt is bailing everyone else out). We can use electronic trading for the corporate, Treasury, and Agency bonds that we have, but also have Swiss Treasuries which have to be traded through their bond desk, as they are not very liquid. They also do not allow “ask” prices through the bond desk, at least on these bonds. We can just call them up at the open (5:30 a.m.) and ask them to get bids. Then, IF they get any bids, they will call us up sometime during that same day and let us know what the bids were. We can then accept or not accept the bid. If they don’t get a bid, or an acceptable bid, for the day, the “sell” order expires, and we have to do it all over again another day.

Good luck with selling your bonds! If you find a better, less expensive way to go, please post it! 🙂

[CA renter]

We asked if we could place offers to sell, but were told that they don’t do asks, only bids. Is this usual? If scottrade doesn’t do asks, who does? Would we need to go through a full service broker such as Morgan Stanley to sell them using asks? What would be an appropriate commission to pay for this service?
—————

We use Fidelity for bonds, but do not have any municipal bonds at the moment (I think they are high risk, but who knows…the govt is bailing everyone else out). We can use electronic trading for the corporate, Treasury, and Agency bonds that we have, but also have Swiss Treasuries which have to be traded through their bond desk, as they are not very liquid. They also do not allow “ask” prices through the bond desk, at least on these bonds. We can just call them up at the open (5:30 a.m.) and ask them to get bids. Then, IF they get any bids, they will call us up sometime during that same day and let us know what the bids were. We can then accept or not accept the bid. If they don’t get a bid, or an acceptable bid, for the day, the “sell” order expires, and we have to do it all over again another day.

Good luck with selling your bonds! If you find a better, less expensive way to go, please post it! 🙂

[CA renter]

We asked if we could place offers to sell, but were told that they don’t do asks, only bids. Is this usual? If scottrade doesn’t do asks, who does? Would we need to go through a full service broker such as Morgan Stanley to sell them using asks? What would be an appropriate commission to pay for this service?
—————

We use Fidelity for bonds, but do not have any municipal bonds at the moment (I think they are high risk, but who knows…the govt is bailing everyone else out). We can use electronic trading for the corporate, Treasury, and Agency bonds that we have, but also have Swiss Treasuries which have to be traded through their bond desk, as they are not very liquid. They also do not allow “ask” prices through the bond desk, at least on these bonds. We can just call them up at the open (5:30 a.m.) and ask them to get bids. Then, IF they get any bids, they will call us up sometime during that same day and let us know what the bids were. We can then accept or not accept the bid. If they don’t get a bid, or an acceptable bid, for the day, the “sell” order expires, and we have to do it all over again another day.

Good luck with selling your bonds! If you find a better, less expensive way to go, please post it! 🙂

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