Individual bonds

Fidelity offers investors the opportunity to participate in both the new issue and secondary bond markets. Investors pay no commissions or concessions when participating in new issue offerings, but Fidelity charges a mark-up (for buys) or mark-down (for sells) in the secondary market. (See Fidelity Brokerage Commission & Fee Schedule (PDF) for more information.)

New issues have a significant presence in the bond market as issuers are constantly entering the market to “roll” their existing debt as well as create new debt. Accessibility of new issues varies for individual investors, with the Treasury market most accessible and the corporate market least accessible.

The secondary market is composed of bonds that were issued in the past and may be traded until redeemed by the issuer. Unlike equity markets where the universe of approximately 5,000 securities is available to trade at all times within market hours, the U.S. bond markets actively offer only a relatively small subset (tens of thousands) out of the more than 1.2 million unique bonds currently in existence. The composition of this offered subset also varies from day to day.

Fidelity makes it easy for you to view and select from our large inventory of new issue and secondary market bonds and CDs to meet your needs.