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Corporate Bond Liquidity Reports

Staff of the Federal Reserve Board have prepared quarterly reports to monitor market-level liquidity in corporate bond markets. While the analysis contained in the reports is not a comprehensive look at corporate bond market liquidity, they include a descriptive summary of widely studied and followed measures of corporate bond market liquidity.1

Each report describes developments in the liquidity and functioning of corporate bond markets on a quarterly basis since the first quarter of 2014. The reports present measures of both primary and secondary market liquidity including:

  • Liquidity in the primary market based on primary corporate bond issuance, bond spreads and yields, as well as the use of bond proceeds.
  • Liquidity in the secondary market based on daily trading volume, turnover, the incidence of large trades, and the cost to buy and sell corporate bonds, also known as bid-ask spreads, as well as dealer inventories.

The information contained in the report may be useful for gauging current and historical market-wide liquidity conditions in the corporate bond market. However, while the reports do characterize the overall level and recent trends in corporate bond market liquidity, they do not attribute current conditions or recent trends to any specific market events, policies or other factors.2 New quarterly reports will be released as they become available.

Reports

1. These reports also have been provided to the U.S. Congress. Return to text

2. The reports have been prepared by Federal Reserve Board staff and do not represent the views of the Board of Governors (or other agencies involved in the preparation of the report). Return to text

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Last Update: October 12, 2017