Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: You Don’t Always Know What Bonds Cost

Some good trades

A classic way to trade bonds is that you call up a broker-dealer (generally a trader at a big bank) and say “I want to buy Bond X and I’ll pay up to 90 cents on the dollar for it,” and then the dealer thinks about who else she knows who owns Bond X and might want to sell it, and she thinks “ah yes Customer Y was telling me the other day that she wants to get rid of Bond X,” so she calls Customer Y and says “hey do you want to sell Bond X,” ...