Treasury Securities: All: Wednesday Level. More Series from H. Are you sure you want to remove this series from the graph? This can not be undone. Cancel Remove. Save graph Save as new graph. Need Help? Questions or Comments. FRED Help. Follow us. Back to Top. A stock certificate is registered in the books of PDO. Ownership in stock certificates cannot be transferred by way of endorsement and delivery.

They are transferred by executing a transfer form as the ownership and transfer details are recorded in the books of PDO. The transfer of a stock certificate is final and valid only when the same is registered in the books of PDO.

Demat form: Holding G-Secs in the electronic or scripless form is the safest and the most convenient alternative as it eliminates the problems relating to their custody, viz. Besides, transfers and servicing of securities in electronic form is hassle free. The holders can maintain their securities in dematerialsed form in either of the two ways:.

Only financially strong entities viz. The servicing of securities held in the Gilt Accounts is done electronically, facilitating hassle free trading and maintenance of the securities. This facilitates trading of G-Secs on the stock exchanges. How does the trading in G-Secs take place and what regulations are applicable to prevent abuse? Whether value free transfer of G-Secs is allowed?

This is an order driven electronic system, where the participants can trade anonymously by placing their orders on the system or accepting the orders already placed by other participants. Anonymity ensures a level playing field for various categories of participants. Other participants can access this system through their custodians i. The custodians place the orders on behalf of their customers.

The scheme seeks to facilitate efficient access to retail individual investor to the same G-Sec market being used by the large institutional investor in a seamless manner. Such negotiations are usually done on telephone and a deal may be struck if both counterparties agree on the amount and rate.

In the case of a buyer, like an UCB wishing to buy a security, the bank's dealer who is authorized by the bank to undertake transactions in G-Secs may get in touch with other market participants over telephone and obtain quotes.

Should a deal be struck, the bank should record the details of the trade in a deal slip specimen given at Annex 5. The dealer must exercise due diligence with regard to the price quoted by verifying with available sources See question number 14 for information on ascertaining the price of G-Secs. Since notifications of orders executed as well as various queries are available online to the GAH, they are better placed to manage their positions.

PMs, however, may recover the actual charges paid by them to CCIL for settlement of trades or any other charges like transaction cost, annual maintenance charges AMC etc. Constituents not desirous of availing this facility may do so by opting out in writing.

In compliance to this, stock exchanges have launched debt trading G-Secs as also corporate bonds segment which generally cater to the needs of retail investors. The process involved in trading of G-Secs in Demat form in stock exchanges is as follows:. The directions are applicable to all persons dealing in securities, money market instruments, foreign exchange instruments, derivatives or other instruments of like nature as specified from time to time.

Major players in the G-Secs market include commercial banks and PDs besides institutional investors like insurance companies. PDs play an important role as market makers in G-Secs market. A market maker provides firm two way quotes in the market i. Other participants include co-operative banks, regional rural banks, mutual funds, provident and pension funds.

Foreign Portfolio Investors FPIs are allowed to participate in the G-Secs market within the quantitative limits prescribed from time to time. This circular can also be accessed from the RBI website under the Notifications — Master circulars section. The important guidelines to be kept in view by the UCBs relate to formulation of an investment policy duly approved by their Board of Directors, defining objectives of the policy, authorities and procedures to put through deals, dealings through brokers, preparing panel of brokers and review thereof at annual intervals, and adherence to the prudential ceilings fixed for transacting through each of the brokers, etc.

Segregate dealing and back-office functions. Officials deciding about purchase and sale transactions should be separate from those responsible for settlement and accounting. Monitor all transactions to see that delivery takes place on settlement day.

The funds account and investment account should be reconciled on the same day before close of business. Restrict the role of the broker only to that of bringing the two parties to the deal together, if a deal is put through with the help of broker.

Have a list of approved brokers. A disproportionate part of the business should not be transacted with or through one or a few brokers. Open a funds account for securities transactions with the same Scheduled Commercial bank or the State Cooperative bank with whom the Gilt Account is maintained. Ensure availability of clear funds in the designated funds accounts for purchases and sufficient securities in the Gilt Account for sales before putting through the transactions.

Do not use brokers in the settlement process at all, i. Do not routinely make investments in non-SLR securities e. The deal slips should be serially numbered and verified separately to ensure that each deal slip has been properly accounted for. Once the deal is concluded, the deal slip should be immediately passed on to the back office it should be separate and distinct from the front office for recording and processing.

For each deal, there must be a system of issue of confirmation to the counter-party. The timely receipt of requisite written confirmation from the counter-party, which must include all essential details of the contract, should be monitored by the back office. In case of trades finalized in the OTC market and reported on NDS-OM reported segment, both the buying and selling counter parties report the trade particulars separately on the reporting platform which should match for the trade to be settled.

What are the important considerations while undertaking security transactions? Which security to invest in — Typically this involves deciding on the maturity and coupon. Maturity is important because this determines the extent of risk an investor like an UCB is exposed to — normally higher the maturity, higher the interest rate risk or market risk. If the investment is largely to meet statutory requirements, it may be advisable to avoid taking undue market risk and buy securities with shorter maturity.

Within the shorter maturity range say years , it would be safer to buy securities which are liquid, that is, securities which trade in relatively larger volumes in the market.

The coupon rate of the security is equally important for the investor as it affects the total return from the security. Where and Whom to buy from- In terms of transparent pricing, the NDS-OM is the safest because it is a live and anonymous platform where the trades are disseminated as they are struck and where counterparties to the trades are not revealed. In case, the trades are conducted on the telephone market, it would be safe to trade directly with a bank or a PD.

Wherever a broker is used, the settlement should not happen through the broker. Trades should not be directly executed with any counterparties other than a bank, PD or a financial institution, to minimize the risk of getting adverse prices.

To be sure of prices, only liquid securities may be chosen for purchase. A safer alternative for investors with small requirements is to buy under the primary auctions conducted by RBI through the non-competitive route.

Since there are bond auctions almost every week, purchases can be considered to coincide with the auctions. Please see question 14 for details on ascertaining the prices of the G-Secs. The price of a G-Sec, like other financial instruments, keeps fluctuating in the secondary market.

The price is determined by demand and supply of the securities. Specifically, the prices of G-Secs are influenced by the level and changes in interest rates in the economy and other macro-economic factors, such as, expected rate of inflation, liquidity in the market, etc. Developments in other markets like money, foreign exchange, credit, commodity and capital markets also affect the price of the G-Secs.

Policy actions by RBI e. This will show a screen containing the details of the latest trades undertaken in the market along with the prices. On this page, the list of securities and the summary of trades is displayed. The total traded amount TTA on that day is shown against each security. Typically, liquid securities are those with the largest amount of TTA.

Pricing in these securities is efficient and hence UCBs can choose these securities for their transactions. Since the prices are available on the screen they can invest in these securities at the current prices through their custodians.

The screenshots of the above webpage are given below:. Reporting on NDS-OM is a two stage process wherein both the seller and buyer of the security have to report their leg of the trade. System validates all the parameters like reporting time, price, security etc. The securities leg of these trades settles in the CSGL account of the custodian. The system, in turn, will match the orders based on price and time priority. That is, it matches bids and offers of the same prices with time priority.

It may be noted that bid and offer of the same entity do not match i. The NDS-OM platform is an anonymous platform wherein the participants will not know the counterparty to the trade. Once an order is matched, the deal ticket gets generated automatically and the trade details flow to the CCIL. The settlement cycle for auctions of all kind of G-Secs i. On the settlement date, the fund accounts of the participants are debited by their respective consideration amounts and their securities accounts SGL accounts are credited with the amount of securities allotted to them.

The securities and funds are settled on a net basis i. CCIL guarantees settlement of trades on the settlement date by becoming a central counter-party CCP to every trade through the process of novation, i. During the period under shut, no trading of the security which is under shut is allowed. The main purpose of having a shut period is to facilitate finalizing of the payment of maturity redemption proceeds and to avoid any change in ownership of securities during this process.

Currently, the shut period for the securities held in SGL accounts is one day. Delivery versus Payment DvP is the mode of settlement of securities wherein the transfer of securities and funds happen simultaneously. This ensures that unless the funds are paid, the securities are not delivered and vice versa. DvP settlement eliminates the settlement risk in transactions.

There are three types of DvP settlements, viz. DvP I — The securities and funds legs of the transactions are settled on a gross basis, that is, the settlements occur transaction by transaction without netting the payables and receivables of the participant. DvP II — In this method, the securities are settled on gross basis whereas the funds are settled on a net basis, that is, the funds payable and receivable of all transactions of a party are netted to arrive at the final payable or receivable position which is settled.

DvP III — In this method, both the securities and the funds legs are settled on a net basis and only the final net position of all transactions undertaken by a participant is settled.

Liquidity requirement in a gross mode is higher than that of a net mode since the payables and receivables are set off against each other in the net mode. In effect, during settlement, the CCP becomes the seller to the buyer and buyer to the seller of the actual transaction. Once CCIL receives the trade information, it works out participant-wise net obligations on both the securities and the funds leg.

When Issued trading takes place between the time a Government Security is announced for issuance and the time it is actually issued. All 'When Issued' transactions are on an 'if' basis, to be settled if and when the actual security is issued. When Issued transactions would commence after the issue of a security is notified by the Central Government and it would cease at the close of trading on the date of auction.

The open position limits are prescribed in the directions. Banks may treat sale of a security held in the investment portfolio as a short sale and follow the process laid down in these directions. For the purpose of these guidelines, short sale would include 'notional' short sale. Circular No. Short sales shall be covered within a period of three months from the date of transaction inclusive of the date. If securities are delivered out of its own portfolio, it must be accounted for appropriately and reflect the transactions as internal borrowing.

It shall be ensured that the securities so borrowed are brought back to the same portfolio, without any change in book value. What are the basic mathematical concepts one should know for calculations involved in bond prices and yields?

An outline of the same with illustrations is provided in Box II below. Money has time value as a Rupee today is more valuable and useful than a Rupee a year later. The concept of time value of money is based on the premise that an investor prefers to receive a payment of a fixed amount of money today, rather than an equal amount in the future, all else being equal. In particular, if one receives the payment today, one can then earn interest on the money until that specified future date.

Further, in an inflationary environment, a Rupee today will have greater purchasing power than after a year. It is a standard method for using the time value of money to appraise long-term projects. Used for capital budgeting, and widely throughout economics, it measures the excess or shortfall of cash flows, in present value PV terms, once financing charges are met.

Then they are summed. Where t - the time of the cash flow N - the total time of the project r - the discount rate the rate of return that could be earned on an investment in the financial markets with similar risk. C t - the net cash flow the amount of cash at time t for educational purposes, C 0 is commonly placed to the left of the sum to emphasize its role as the initial investment. How is the Price of a bond calculated?

What is the total consideration amount of a trade and what is accrued interest? The price of a bond is nothing but the sum of present value of all future cash flows of the bond. The interest rate used for discounting the cash flows is the Yield to Maturity YTM explained in detail in question no. Accrued interest is the interest calculated for the broken period from the last coupon day till a day prior to the settlement date of the trade.

Since the seller of the security is holding the security for the period up to the day prior to the settlement date of the trade, he is entitled to receive the coupon for the period held. The last coupon date being Nov 25, , the number of days in broken period till Jan 29, one day prior to settlement date i.

In the instant case, it is If market interest rate levels rise, the price of a bond falls. Conversely, if interest rates or market yields decline, the price of the bond rises. In other words, the yield of a bond is inversely related to its price.

The relationship between yield to maturity and coupon rate of bond may be stated as follows:. When the market price of the bond is less than the face value, i. When the market price of the bond is more than its face value, i. When the market price of the bond is equal to its face value, i. The three yield measures commonly used by investors to measure the potential return from investing in a bond are briefly described below:.

Coupon yield refers to nominal interest payable on a fixed income security like G-Sec. This is the fixed return the Government i. Coupon yield thus does not reflect the impact of interest rate movement and inflation on the nominal interest that the Government pays.

Coupon: 8. The current yield does not take into account the reinvestment of the interest income received periodically. The current yield for a 10 year 8. The price of a bond is simply the sum of the present values of all its remaining cash flows.

Present value is calculated by discounting each cash flow at a rate; this rate is the YTM. Thus, YTM is the discount rate which equates the present value of the future cash flows from a bond to its current market price. In other words, it is the internal rate of return on the bond.

The calculation of YTM involves a trial-and-error procedure. YTM could be calculated manually as well as using functions in any standard spread sheet like MS Excel. Manual or trial and error method is complicated because G-Secs have many cash flows running into future. This is explained by taking an example below. In the MS Excel programme, the following function could be used for calculating the yield of periodically coupon paying securities, given the price.

Settlement is the security's settlement date. The security settlement date is the date on which the security and funds are exchanged. Maturity is the security's maturity date. The maturity date is the date when the security expires. What are the day count conventions used in calculating bond yields? Day count convention refers to the method used for arriving at the holding period number of days of a bond to calculate the accrued interest.

As the use of different day count conventions can result in different accrued interest amounts, it is appropriate that all the participants in the market follow a uniform day count convention. Hence, in the case of T-Bills, which are essentially money market instruments, money market convention is followed. Hence the convention changes in different countries and in different markets within the same country eg.

Money market convention is different than the bond market convention in India. In simplest form, duration refers to the payback period of a bond to break even, i. Duration is expressed in number of years. A step by step approach for working out duration is given in the Box IV below. First, each of the future cash flows is discounted to its respective present value for each period.

Since the coupons are paid out every six months, a single period is equal to six months and a bond with two years maturity will have four time periods. Second, the present values of future cash flows are multiplied with their respective time periods these are the weights.

That is the PV of the first coupon is multiplied by 1, PV of second coupon by 2 and so on. Third, the above weighted PVs of all cash flows is added and the sum is divided by the current price total of the PVs in step 1 of the bond. The resultant value is the duration in no. Since one period equals to six months, to get the duration in no. This is the time period within which the bond is expected to pay back its own value if held till maturity.

The weighted average term time from now to payment of a bond's cash flows or of any series of linked cash flows. The higher the coupon rate of a bond, the shorter the duration if the term of the bond is kept constant. It refers to the change in value of the security to one per cent change in interest rates Yield. The formula is. Duration is useful primarily as a measure of the sensitivity of a bond's market price to interest rate i.

This article discusses the business behind the continuous Chinese buying of U. China is primarily a manufacturing hub and an export-driven economy. Trade data from the U. Census Bureau shows that China has been running a big trade surplus with the U.

Chinese exporters receive U. It buys the available excess U. PBOC can print yuan as needed. China hence accumulates USD as forex reserves. International trading which involves two currencies has a self-correcting mechanism. Assume Australia is running a current account deficit i. The other countries which are sending goods to Australia are getting paid Australian dollars AUD , so there is a huge supply of AUD in the international market, leading the AUD to depreciate in value against other currencies.

However, this decline in AUD will make Australian exports cheaper and imports costlier. Gradually, Australia will start exporting more and importing less, due to its lower-valued currency. This will ultimately reverse the initial scenario scenario 1 above. This is the self-correcting mechanism that occurs in the international trade and forex markets regularly, with little or no intervention from any authority.

If the PBOC stops interfering—in the previously described manner—the RMB would self-correct and appreciate in value, thus making Chinese exports costlier. It would lead to a major crisis of unemployment due to the loss of export business. China wants to keep its goods competitive in the international markets, and that cannot happen if the RMB appreciates. However, this leads to a huge pileup of USD as forex reserves for China.

Though other labor-intensive, export-driven countries such as India carry out similar measures, they do so only to a limited extent. One of the major challenges resulting from the approach that's been outlined is that it leads to high inflation. China has tight, state-dominated control on its economy and is able to manage inflation through other measures like subsidies and price controls. Like the U. The euro forms the second biggest tranche of Chinese forex reserves.

China needs to invest such huge stockpiles to earn at least the risk-free rate. With trillions of U. Treasury securities to offer the safest investment destination for Chinese forex reserves.

Multiple other investment destinations are available. With euro stockpiles, China can consider investing in European debt. Possibly, even U. However, China acknowledges that the stability and safety of investment take priority over everything else.

Though the Eurozone has been in existence for around 18 years now, it still remains unstable. It is not even certain whether the Eurozone and Euro will continue to exist in the mid-to-long term. An asset swap U. Other asset classes like real estate, stocks, and other countries' treasuries are far riskier compared to U.

Forex reserve money is not spare cash to be gambled away in risky securities for want of higher returns. Another option for China is to use the dollars elsewhere. For example, the dollars can be used to pay Middle East countries for oil supplies.

However, those countries too will need to invest the dollars they receive. Effectively, owing to the acceptance of the dollar as the international trade currency, any dollar supply eventually resides in the forex reserve of a nation, or in the safest investment—U. Treasury securities. One more reason for China to continuously buy U. Treasurys is the gigantic size of the U. Buying U. Treasurys enhances China's money supply and creditworthiness.

Selling or swapping such Treasurys would reverse these advantages. Hence, as long as China continues to have an export-driven economy with a huge trade surplus with the U. Chinese loans to the U. China gets a huge market for its products, and the U. Beyond their well-known political rivalry, both nations willingly or unwillingly are locked in a state of inter-dependency from which both benefit, and which is likely to continue.

It was replaced by the British pound sterling. Treasurys that are considered virtually the safest.