T-bills, bonds, and notes can now be purchased and held in your tastytrade account, and you will see your positions listed on the platform. See the paragraphs below for more information.
What are T-Bills, Bonds, and Notes?
T-Bills: mature in 1 year or less. They are purchased at a discount and mature at par $100 ($1000 / bill). The “yield” quoted on an annualized basis and enjoyed by the holder is the difference between the purchase price and the par amount.
T-Notes: mature between 2, 3, 5, 7, or 10 years and have bi-annual interest payments.
T-Bonds: mature between 20-30 years and offer the highest yields.
TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities): mature in 5, 10, and 30 years
- Fixed interest security
- At maturity, if the adjusted principal is greater than the face or par value, you’ll receive the greater value
- The principal is adjusted semiannually to protect against inflation
Risk (inverse relationship) - if interest rate level increases, existing bonds’ value drop (and vice versa).
How to trade T-Bills, Bonds, or Notes
You will need to contact the tastytrade trade desk to purchase bills, bonds, or notes. If you have the CUSIP please be ready to give it to us so we can get the order placed, if you do not have the CUSIP please let us know the maturity of the bond so we can locate it quickly. Also let us know the quantity you wish to purchase, whether the number of bonds or cash spent.
Take into consideration prior to purchasing- there is a $25 fee to open and close all bonds, bills, or notes ($50 round trip) $25 is not charged if the bill, bond, or note is brought to maturity.
The backend provides the quotes for the secondary market traded T-bills. Quotes found online are likely to be from the primary market.
Margin Requirements
We margin the T-Bills at 94% in margin accounts only via a buying power adjustment. This will not occur in cash accounts or IRAs. T-Bills are marginable and have a margin requirement of 6%. For example, if you deposit or buy $100,000 and use it all to buy T-Bills, you would still have $94,000 in buying power.
Cash accounts will have no additional leverage if purchasing T-bills, bonds, or notes in the account.
How are they displayed?
The bonds, bills, and notes will be displayed on the positions page on the platform. The platforms will list the quantity, previous close price and then the price you opened the position for (avg open price). Treasury products will also be accounted for in the platform's net liq, but will not show up in the capital requirements window.
*Line items are standalone figures and do not correlate to the columns you would have for equity/future positions*
Please keep in mind that our clearing firm (Apex Clearing) does not participate in auctions or maintain classification as a primary dealer in the U.S. Treasury market. As a result the position marks may not match recently issued tenors, often viewed online as benchmarks. The quotes displayed derive from past issued U.S. Treasury securities (T-bills, notes, and bonds) that represented a specific maturity at time of issue. For example, a 30-day T-bill quote today might actually have been deriov90-day bill issued approximately 60 days ago.