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TRACE (Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine)

Overview

TRACE provides transaction-level data for the US corporate bond and agency debt market. It is operated by FINRA and captures virtually all over-the-counter (OTC) fixed income transactions in the US.

What you can find here:

  • Individual bond trades: price, yield, volume, buy/sell side, trade execution time
  • Corporate bonds: investment grade and high yield
  • Agency debt: government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) bonds
  • Trade reporting details: reporting dealer, contra party type, trade type (customer vs. inter-dealer)
  • Historical coverage: from July 2002 onwards

TRACE is the primary source for academic research on corporate bond market liquidity, pricing, and transaction costs.

WRDS Access

Key Tables

Use conn.list_tables(library='trace') in the Python API to see all available tables.

Example: Querying Bond Trades

import wrds
conn = wrds.Connection()

# List available tables
conn.list_tables(library='trace')

# Get recent bond trades
trades = conn.raw_sql("""
    SELECT cusip_id, trd_exctn_dt, trd_exctn_tm,
           rptd_pr, entrd_vol_qt, rpt_side_cd
    FROM trace.trace_enhanced
    WHERE trd_exctn_dt >= '2023-01-01'
    LIMIT 100
""", date_cols=['trd_exctn_dt'])

For more examples, see the Python API notebook.