Fixed Income FAQs: Trading Individual Bond & CDs

You can:

• Buy or sell secondary market fixed income offerings.
• Buy new issue fixed income offerings.

You can enter orders during the standard market session, which is generally 8 a.m. ET to 5 p.m. ET. Occasionally, the bond market may close early at 2 p.m. ET due to a market holiday. Please note that bid requests for bonds you are seeking to sell must be requested by 4 p.m. ET.

Most secondary market bonds are marginable. To determine the CUSIP and account margin eligibility, call a specialist in fixed income at (800) 544-5372.

Some secondary market bonds are not marginable due to the size of the issue.

While CDs can be purchased in either the new issue or secondary market in type margin, they have a 100% initial and maintenance requirement.

You cannot use margin to purchase newly issued municipal bonds. Newly issued municipal bonds must be held in the cash account (type 1) for 30 days from the effective date before being margined.

Margin trading entails greater risk, including, but not limited to, risk of loss and incurrence of margin interest debt, and is not suitable for all investors. Please assess your financial circumstances and risk tolerance before trading on margin. Margin credit is extended by National Financial Services, Member NYSE, SIPC.

If you know the CUSIP for the security you want to trade, enter it in the Search by CUSIP field on the fixed income landing page and click the Search button. On the Bond Results page, click on the Buy or Sell button. If you want to search for securities, you can do so on the fixed income landing page using the Yield table or search criteria. When you select the security you want to trade, the CUSIP is automatically entered for you.

Enter quantities as follows (numbers only, no dollar signs or commas):

• For bonds, credit union share certificates (CUSCs) and most certificates of deposit (CDs), enter the number of bonds to trade in increments of 1 bond, where 1 bond/CD is equal to $1,000.
• For fractional certificates of deposit, enter either the quantity or dollar amount, available in increments of 0.1 or $100, respectively.
• Fixed rate capital securities trade in shares instead of bonds. Enter the quantity in increments of 1 share, where 1 share is equal to $25.

Due to the limited trading volume in the fixed income market, using Fidelity.com you may only place limit orders for fixed income securities in the secondary market. Limit orders can be placed in terms of price:

• A limit price order represents the highest price (in terms of par value) at which you are willing to buy or the lowest price (in terms of par value) at which you are willing to sell securities

Limit orders can further be defined as either "fill or kill" or "day."

• A fill or kill limit order is generally placed at an existing bid or offer price, thus ensuring that a customer does not receive a worse price than what is displayed at the time of the order.
• A day limit order means that you can adjust your limit price to a value different from the displayed inside bid or offer.
  
  For example, if you see a bond available for purchase priced at 105, and you are of the opinion the price is too high, you can attempt to enter a day limit order at a lower price, for example 104.

Day limit orders generally have a lower chance of execution than fill or kill limit orders.

For new issue municipal bonds or new issue structured products, you can place a new issue order.

• A new issue order is submitted by you to let Fidelity know that you want to become eligible to receive an allocation of a new issue municipal bond or structured product. The information submitted includes the brokerage account from which the funds to pay for the securities will be deducted, the security's CUSIP, and the maximum quantity of securities that you would be willing to purchase. By placing a new issue order for a municipal or structured product security, you are expressing your desire to participate in a new issue offering.
• For new issue orders for municipal securities, unless the order is canceled by you, you will participate in the allocation process. Allocations may be made in whole, in part, or not at all. Updates regarding the order are sent to you as an alert that is sent by email or viewable in the Service Message Center.

For New Issue Treasury's or New Issue Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), you can place a Market Order.

• The Treasury auction process is a way for the federal government to raise funds in order to finance its activities. Once the amount to be auctioned and maturity date are announced, you can enter a noncompetitive bid for up to $10,000,000.
• A noncompetitive bid means that you agree to accept the high rate or yield set at auction.
• It's important to note that the dollar amount is at the household level, so if you enter multiple noncompetitive bids for the same Treasury auction, the aggregate amount must total no more than $10,000,000.

Institutions can enter competitive bids which the Treasury accepts in ascending order in terms of their rates and yield. All bidders, noncompetitive and competitive, will receive the same rate and yield as the highest accepted bid.

For new issue CDs, CUSCs, or new issue agency bond orders, you can enter a market order.

• While a market order is generally thought of in the equity market as "the next available price," when it comes to new issue CDs, CUSCs, or agency bonds, there is only one next price: 100, which is otherwise known as par. There is no mark-up for trades in the new issue bond market, and there is usually no accrued interest on the security. Therefore, purchasing these security types as a new issue generally costs $1,000 per bond/CD.

"Ask yield" reflects the lowest of the yield to maturity, yield to call, or the yield to pre-refunded date. If a bond is quoted to call date or pre-refunded date, and interest rates have declined, the bond's issuer is likely to call the bond on the next call date or pre-refunded date, if it is favorable to the issuer's interests. If a bond is called or pre-refunded the bond holder's interest payments cease and the principal is returned as of call date or pre-refunded date. If the bond holder seeks to reinvest this principal in a similar bond issue, they will likely have to accept a lower yield (and lower interest payments) consistent with prevailing interest rates. Not all bonds are callable.

The prices and yields shown on Fidelity's fixed income secondary offering tables are posted prior to the assessment of the Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC (FBS) mark-up or mark-down. The FBS mark-up or mark-down will be applied for customer review prior to placement of the order.

Although a limit order enables you to specify a price limit, it does not guarantee that your order will be executed. You should monitor your orders on the Activity & Orders tab.

Entering an order makes you eligible for, but does not guarantee, an allocation of bonds. If the offering is oversubscribed (more bonds were requested than available for purchase) and you did not withdraw your order, you may receive a portion of the bonds you requested, or none at all. Fidelity allocates bonds as fairly and equitably as possible.

Your order will not be sent to Fidelity if you leave the Preview Order page before you click Place Order, or if you click Cancel.

When you click Place Order on the Preview Order page, you are agreeing that the order information is correct, and you are authorizing Fidelity to execute the order on your behalf.

When you submit an order online, you always see a Preview Order page. Review the Preview Order page carefully before placing your order. You can see your account balances without leaving the Preview Order page.

Once you place your order, you will see a Confirmation page displaying your order confirmation number and trade details. Confirmations can be found in the Documents tab on Fidelity.com; you can print this confirmation for your records. Once the order has been executed, Fidelity mails you a paper confirmation unless you are signed up for eDelivery.

You can attempt to cancel a pending bond or CD order that has not yet executed from the Activity & Orders page. To view open new issue municipal bond orders, select the "View orders for new issue bonds" link at the bottom of the Activity & Orders page.

Attempts to cancel open orders are performed on a best-effort basis. There is no guarantee that an open order can be canceled either in whole or in part.

If you are looking to trade a particular product type or specific CUSIP that is not displayed on Fidelity.com, you may be able to find the offering by contacting Fidelity directly. Product types such as mortgage-backed Securities, non-dollar denominated corporate and foreign sovereign bonds may be able to be traded. Keep in mind that availability may be limited due to liquidity, minimum purchase requirements, and trading hours, among other factors. Please call a specialist in fixed income at 800-544-5372 for details.

Bonds & CDs are priced overnight using a third-party vendor. The last price does not reflect the amount to be received at maturity. The last price—also referred to as the third-party price in the fixed income research pages of Fidelity.com—is an approximate value of the security using various factors including, but not limited to, recent trade activity of the bond or CD and comparable bonds & CDs. When selling the security, the actual price may be higher or lower than the last price.

When you need to sell a bond or CD immediately, but there are no dealer bid quotes displayed, or you wish to sell a smaller quantity than the current minimum, you may enter a request for bid quote. In this process:

• You request bids from dealers for a specific quantity.
• Dealer response(s), including bid price(s), are emailed to you, posted on our Bid Requests dashboardLog In Required, and displayed in the Communications Center found on the Portfolio Summary page
• The bid quote request process typically engages dealers who are willing to bid on illiquid or higher risk securities. This finite pool of dealers may discontinue the practice of bidding if they believe Fidelity's customers are using this service for pricing purposes only.

There are 2 ways to request a bid quote. You can request a bid quote from either the fixed income trade ticket or from the fixed income landing page. Generally, you will use the trade ticket to initiate a bid request and use the Bid Quote Status page to track the request.

To initiate a bid request, select the bond or CD from the Positions page and select the Sell button. When there is no active bid for the bond or CD, you will be able to select Request Bid. Some bonds or CDs will not allow for a bid to be requested. In these instances, call a specialist in fixed income at 800-544-5372 for help.

To track your request for bid quote, select the Bid Requests link from the fixed income landing page. Here, you can choose to sell at the dealer's price or let the bid response expire.

Check the Bid Status column to see what time your bid quote response is valid until. Bid quote responses may be valid until the end of the day, but some may expire sooner.

When you need to sell a corporate bond, agency bond, CD (including fractional CDs) you can click the Sell button from your Positions page or the Search results page. You will be directed to the fixed income trade ticket, with the CUSIP in context. Typically, you can either:

1. Sell the bond using the active bid price on Fidelity.com that meets the quantity you are looking to sell. You can place a fill or kill order at the available price or set a limit price of your choice by selecting the Day order function.
2. Request a bid quote, if no active price is available on Fidelity.com at the time you are looking to sell.

When you need to sell a Treasury security of a TIPS position, you must sell using the active bid price on Fidelity.com. You can place a fill or kill order at the available price or set a limit price of your choice by selecting the Day order function. You cannot request a bid for any Treasury security. If no price is available on Fidelity.com for the CUSIP you are looking to sell, please call a specialist in fixed income at 800-544-5372 for help.

When you need to sell a municipal bond immediately, there are 3 options available to you.

1. You may enter a request for bid quote(s). In this process:
   • You must select the Request Bid option in the Action drop-down.
   • You request bids from dealers for a specific quantity.
   • Dealer response(s), including bid price(s), are emailed to you, posted on your Bid Requests dashboard, and displayed in the Communications Center found on the Portfolio Summary page.
   • You can choose to sell at the dealer’s price or let the bid response expire.
   • Bid quote requests are valid only until the close of the trading day.
   • Fidelity does not allow you to enter numerous bid requests for the same bond over the course of the day.
2. You can attempt to sell now at the bid price available on Fidelity.com. In this process:
   • You must select the Sell option in the Action drop-down.
   • You must select a time in force of fill or kill.
   • The quantity you are looking to sell must meet the dealer's minimum and maximum quantity.
   • The best price available for the quantity you own will prefill in the Limit Price field. This price cannot be changed.
   • If not filled, your trade will be canceled within 10 minutes.
3. You can attempt to sell at a price you select by entering a limit order.
   • You must select the Sell option in the Action drop-down.
   • You must select a time in force of Day.
   • The Limit Price field will default to the best price available for the quantity you enter. You may update this to a price of your choosing, within certain Fidelity established tolerances.
   • If not filled, your trade will be canceled at market close.

Credit/fixed income research looks at the likelihood that an issuer will be able to meet financial obligations, including debt payments. They often review the issuer's financial history and determine whether market conditions will be conducive to repayment. This work is done to justify a credit rating supplied by one of the 3 major ratings agencies, Moody's, S&P, and Fitch. Equity research is focused on analyzing financial data and trends for a company. An analyst reviews public records of businesses in order to predict the company's future financial needs. Their report is focused on company finances and describes the business's investment potential by assigning analyst's opinions, such as buy, sell, hold, etc.

A market benchmark is a comparative average used when comparing the performance or volatility of a specific security. The benchmark used will vary depending on the instrument you're comparing. We are providing benchmarks for the overall bond market, US Treasury, municipal, agency, and corporate market. The benchmark shows you how all instruments included in the index fared on average. You can then use that as a comparison to a security you are considering. The major difference between benchmarks and yield curves is specificity. Yield curves look at a more focused segment of a market than benchmarks. For example, a municipal benchmark would look at the entire municipal market. Municipal yield curves would look at specific credit ratings or even types of municipal bonds.

A research report includes an analysis of the securities of individual companies, industries, or municipalities, and that provides information upon which an investor can form an investment decision. Commentary is an opinion or point of view that could be one element in coming to an investment decision. An investor can base an investment decision based on anything they want to.

To search for individual fixed income offerings in the secondary market available through Fidelity, navigate to the News & Research tab > Fixed Income, Bonds & CDs. There are multiple ways to search for secondary market offerings. You can:

• Use the tool at the top center to search for bonds by CUSIP or keyword.
• Quickly search for bonds using the Yield table found under the Yields tab in the center of the page. Here, you can scan yields across the yield curves of the various bond types.
• Click the Bonds tab to use the advanced search offerings page and use the tabs across the top to search for bond types by a variety of criteria (Maturity Date, Coupon, Yield, etc.).

Use this section to focus your bond search. Search criteria are in drop-down menu or slider format, allowing you to make your selection without having to leave the search results page. For Maturity Date, you can either type the date in MM/YYYY format or click the calendar and select month and year. For Ask Yield, the default is All, but you can move the gray arrows along the blue slider to change the default value range. The default value range is defined by the bond or CD offerings available at the time of your search. Note: The criteria types in this section differ depending on which bond type you're searching for.

You can select values for the search criteria in this section in 2 ways. You can overwrite the default values in the Min and Max fields, or you can move the gray arrows along the blue slider to change the default values. Please note your entries must be in numerical format and you will not be able to enter values outside the default range.

The drop-down menus under Call & Redemption Features default to All. You can change these selections by clicking into each drop-down menu and choosing a different option.

The drop-down menus under Other Features typically default to All. For municipal bonds, Subject to Alternative Minimum Tax defaults to No and Exempt from Federal Tax defaults to Yes. You can change this selection by clicking into each drop-down menu and choosing a different option.

Fidelity's fixed income inventory is composed of offerings from Fidelity Capital Markets, and various third-party providers. These securities can be viewed and traded online. Note that Fidelity's inventory will generally represent a subset of the universe of outstanding securities of a given bond type.

Fidelity may get bonds directly from national and regional broker dealers or use national and regional broker dealers that are affiliated with the various alternative trading systems that Fidelity uses.

A fixed income alternative trading system (or ATS) is an electronic marketplace that aggregates securities, bringing the offerings of multiple bond dealers together in a single marketplace.

Fidelity uses several of the largest ATSs. Through them, you have access to over 300 participants that contribute and/or distribute fixed income securities.

By partnering with these ATSs, Fidelity can offer you a broad variety of fixed income inventory. Contributors to the inventory include securities firms such as UBS, Credit Suisse Group, and Bank of America, N.A. Fidelity is also a contributor of inventory to these offering platforms.

By pooling inventory in this way, fixed income ATSs assist in creating a more electronically enabled, centralized marketplace for fixed income securities.

The search results page displays all the bonds that meet your criteria.

• Sort your results using the column headers according to your preferred criteria.
• Note the Attributes and Issuer Events columns, which highlight important bond characteristics, including whether the security is callable. For municipal and corporate or agency/GSE bonds, this column also includes any Material Events (ME) or Issuer Events (IE) from the recent past. Learn more by clicking the ME or IE links.
• Compare two bonds by selecting Compare Two Bonds from the Select Action drop-down at the top right.

Note: Bond attribute and analytics information is provided for informational and/or educational purposes and is not intended to provide tax, legal, or investment advice and should not be construed as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation for any security by Fidelity or any provider. Neither Fidelity nor any supplier of market data guarantees the timeliness, sequence, accuracy, or completeness of market data or any other market information, or messages disseminated by any party.

Fidelity provides a couple of tools that can help:

• Portfolio Review: Use this tool to help diversify your portfolio according to your needs, with investment strategies and guidance.
• Fixed Income Dashboard: Use this tool to get a comprehensive view of your fixed income portfolio, including cash flow and analytics.

You can access Portfolio Review and Fixed Income Dashboard from the Accounts & Trade tab > Portfolio, then selecting the Analysis tab. Please note that you must be logged in.

From the Bond Details page for corporate, municipal and agency/GSE bonds, the Price & Performance tab displays the most recent reported trade as Recent Trade (under Basic Analytics) and provides a link to view most recent trades. Clicking on this link will open a pop-up window to display up to one year's worth of the most recent trades, with the time, price, and size/quantity of each trade.

The trades listed are trades that have occurred across the US bond markets, not just Fidelity's most recent trades or the trades of Fidelity's customers. All dealers are required to report this information to self-regulatory organizations: the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for corporate and agency/GSE bonds, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) for municipal bonds. The information is in the public domain and Fidelity provides a real-time display of this data as a service to you.

Recent Trades can be viewed either in a table or chart by selecting the toggle at the top left. Filter the displayed trades to any combination of Customer Buy, Customer Sell, or Dealer to Dealer.

In the table view, sort any of the column headers in ascending or descending order.

In the chart view, view the chart by either price or yield. Hover over any of the trades for specific trade details. Narrow the historical trades in view by using the slider at the bottom. To view more recent trades, select the double chevron on the left side of the page.

Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine, or TRACE, is owned and maintained by FINRA to track trading activity in US corporate bonds and agency/GSE bonds. The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, or MSRB, is responsible for making the rules that regulate the dealers of municipal bonds, municipal notes, and other municipal securities.

Most of the bond types (and CD types) Fidelity provides access to are available as both new and secondary issues. New issues are fixed income securities that may be purchased directly from the issuer through Fidelity, such as participating in a Treasury auction, or submitting an order in a new municipal bond offering. Once a security has been priced and issued, it moves to trading on the secondary market, which, for bonds, is predominantly an over-the-counter market.

For new issue bonds, purchasers do not pay a mark-up for the transaction. Instead, the issuer pays a concession to the broker dealers that distribute the offering on their behalf. In the secondary market, owners of a bond are charged a mark-down when they sell a bond, and buyers are charged a mark-up when they purchase a bond.

Navigate to the Fixed Income page by selecting News & Research, then Fixed Income, Bonds & CDs from the navigation bar. Here, you can either enter a CUSIP to search for a particular security, or enter criteria to refine your search and view a list of securities that match your criteria. You can search for Treasury, Municipal, Corporate, or Agency/GSE bonds, as well as certificates of deposit (CDs). You can also perform searches across new issue offerings and secondary offerings (i.e., combining multiple bond types in a single results display).

If you're searching by criteria, enter search criteria in the relevant fields on the Find Bonds & CDs page. Navigate there by selecting the Bonds tab in the middle of the fixed income landing page. You don't need to specify information for all fields, only those that will produce a listing of bonds that may meet your investment needs.

By selecting the relevant link on the Find Bonds & CDs page, you can view information about new issue offerings of Treasury and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) auctions, CDs, Municipals, Agency/GSE, Corporate and CorporateNotes Program^SM bonds, Credit Union Share Certificates (CUSCs), and structured products. For new issue municipal bonds, you see a summary screen showing all issuers. Click View Offerings to see the individual securities offered by each issuer.

The search results pages indicate the total number of offerings found.

You can click an issuer's name/description to view additional information about a security (e.g., if it is callable, federal income tax-exempt, ratings, coupon, interest payment frequency, etc.).

Click Buy or Trade to enter an order to buy a particular security. Selecting Buy or Trade displays the Trade Fixed Income page and automatically fills in the selected security's CUSIP. Click Participate to enter an indication of interest in participating in a new issue municipal, or structured product offering.

Material events reflect information that issuers of municipal bonds file with the MSRB's Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website at https://emma.msrb.org. Issuer events provide similar information for Corporate and Agency/GSE bonds (e.g., an upgrade or downgrade, or the issuer being placed on credit watch by ratings agencies like Moody's^® and S&P^®). Fidelity makes these events available to its customers for informational purposes only and has made no independent evaluation of the information. You must make your own evaluation of the information and how it may influence your investment decision.

For secondary municipal and corporate bonds, material and issuer events are visible in the Attributes column of the bond search results table. If relevant events are available, (ME) or (IE) is displayed in the Attributes column. Click (ME) or (IE) to see the details.

Attributes, found in the far right of the offerings tables for secondary bonds, new issue bonds, and CDs, highlight important attributes or features an investor should consider before purchasing a bond or CD. These include whether the bond has call protection (i.e., is non-callable) or whether it has had any recent material events (for municipal bonds) or issuer events (for corporates and agencies). For CDs, use attributes to verify the CD is FDIC-insured or if it has Blue Sky restrictions. Definitions of each attribute can be found in the attributes legend box above the search results table.

The bond details pages provide over 40 additional information and data points about a fixed income security. The bond details pages are comprised of 2 separate pages, accessed via 2 tabs labeled Overview and Price & Performance.

The Overview page lists features or characteristics of the bond that in most cases are permanent features specific to that issue (e.g., CUSIP, maturity date, call information). Two fields that can vary over time are the Moody's and S&P ratings, which rise or fall in line with the issuer's credit standing as assessed by those 2 ratings agencies. For callable bonds (bonds that do not have call protection), the Overview page will indicate Call Protection: No and View Schedule will link to the call schedule (when available).

The Price & Performance page contains pricing data about the security or other analytics. In addition to the current offered price and related yield, the Analytics page offers the price from the prior day’s close of business (third-party price) and the current yield to worst and yield to maturity of the offering, as well as risk measures such as duration or option-adjusted spread. For secondary corporate and municipal bond details in the Analytics tab, see the Recent Trade field and those directly under it for historical information on the most recent trade price across the US bond market. Note that the Analytics page for a new issue bond will not contain much data due to the lack of available live or historical price information.

Municipal bond details pages have an additional tab called News & Documents. This tab contains information about the issuer, recent news, material event notices, obligor information, and primary market documents.

You can access the bond details pages by:

• Clicking a bond's description in a bond search results table.
• Clicking on the CUSIP from your account's positions page (if you own the bond).
• Clicking on the bond’s description from the Fixed Income Dashboard’s positions page

To participate in new issue municipal offerings, you must have a Fidelity brokerage account, and you must be signed up for Fidelity alerts. For all other new issue product types, it is recommended that you are signed up for Fidelity alerts. Fidelity alerts allow you to receive new issue notifications as well as other account or trade-related information by email.

To set up Fidelity alerts, select News & Research, then Alerts. Select Fixed Income New Issues and Secondary Products in the Products and Offerings section. Read the description of the alert and choose the alert(s) that is appropriate for you.

• Municipal
• Certificates of Deposit, including fractional CDs
• CorporateNotes Program^SM
• Agency/GSE
• Structured Products
• Treasury Auctions, including TIPS Auctions
• Credit Union Share Certificates (CUSCs)

For detailed information about each of these new issue types, go to Investment Products, then Fixed Income, Bonds & CDs.

• For new issue municipal bonds, the minimum quantity is 5 bonds (typically costing at/around $5,000 or at/around $1,000 per bond), with increments of 5 bonds thereafter.
• Treasury auctions, most new issue CDs, CUSCs and CorporateNotes Program offerings have a minimum quantity of 1 bond (typically costing at/around $1,000 per bond), with increments of 1 bond thereafter.
• Fractional CDs allow for lower minimum investments in increments of $100, or .1 bonds.
• New Issue Agency/GSE offerings vary in minimum and increment quantity. Generally, minimums range from 1 to 10 bonds. Increments range from 1 to 5 bonds.

• There is no charge for Treasury auction orders placed online at Fidelity.com. A $19.95 fee will be charged on all Treasury auction orders placed through a Fidelity representative.
• Non-competitive bids are limited to no more than $10 million in a bill, note, bond, or TIPS auction.
• A bidder bidding competitively for their own account may not bid non-competitively for their own account in the same auction.
• Prior to the designated closing time for receipt of competitive tenders, a non-competitive bidder may not enter into any agreement to purchase or sell or otherwise dispose of the securities that may be acquired in the auction.

• Not all CDs are available in every state. Each state has its own set of laws to offer securities for sale in its state, and those laws are referred to as Blue Sky laws. As a result, a state restriction is known as a Blue Sky restriction and will vary by the issuing bank and offering. On Fidelity.com CD pages, SKY is used as an attribute to identify those CDs with Blue Sky restrictions. Click SKY to see the restricted states.
• Fractional CDs are not eligible for the Auto Roll feature, unless the quantity being purchased is in a increment of $1,000.
• Not all CDs are eligible to be purchased in fractional amounts of $100; the capability is available for CDs designated as fractional CDs only.

For new issue municipal bonds, you can submit an order to let Fidelity know that you want to become eligible to receive an allocation of securities. You submit information such as the brokerage account (from which the funds to pay for the securities will eventually be deducted if allocated), the security's CUSIP number, and the maximum number of securities that you would like to receive. By placing an order, you are participating in a new issue offering..

Before entering an order for a new issue municipal bond, review the preliminary official issue document (prospectus, preliminary official statement, offering circular, or term sheet). These documents contain information about the offering and issuer that the underwriter and issuer decided an investor should know in order to make an informed investment decision. You can view preliminary official issue documents by clicking the relevant link next to the issue in question.

Next, sign up for New Issue Offering Alerts within the Fixed Income Alert section, by going to Research, then Alerts, and then selecting Fixed Income New Issues & Secondary Products under the Products & Offerings section. This will allow Fidelity to send you notification of the price and size of the offering.

On the Search Results page for a relevant new offering, click Participate. Select the account in which you want to purchase and pay for the securities.

To have the opportunity to participate in a new issue offering, proceed to the Trade page and enter an amount in which you specify the maximum number of bonds you are interested in purchasing. In most cases, 1 bond is equal to $1,000 face value. For example, if you want to buy $5,000 face value of a municipal offering, you enter 5 in the Quantity field. Most new issue municipal bond orders must be placed with a minimum and increment order of 5.

Once you've entered the quantity, select Preview Order. To place the order, select Place Order.

You receive a notification once an offering for which you've submitted an order has been priced and the size of the offering has been announced by the underwriter.

If pricing of the security remains unchanged or moves lower, you will not need to take any action to confirm an order.

If pricing of the security moves higher, you will receive an alert that requires you to take further action if you wish to cancel your order. If you fail to contact Fidelity to cancel the order prior to final pricing, you will participate in the allocation process.

If you order is subject to a repricing and the price is adjusted above the original price, you will receive a Repricing Alert. You then have one hour from receipt of the repricing alert to cancel or adjust your order. If you do not cancel or adjust your order, you will participate in the allocation process.

To view an open new issue municipal bond order, select the Accounts & Trade tab and select the Portfolio option. Then select the Activity & Orders tab. In the “Don’t see the activity you’re looking for?” section at the bottom of the page, select the “View orders for new issue bonds” link. The New Issue Order Details page will display.

The New- Issue Order Details page displays all open new issue orders for the following types of new issue offerings:

• New issue municipal bonds
• Structured products

From this page, you can cancel a new issue order.

If you do not want to purchase the bonds, you must withdraw (delete) any new issue municipal bond order prior to the final pricing of bonds. If you fail to contact Fidelity to cancel the order prior to final pricing, you will participate in the allocation process.

To delete a new issue municipal bond order, select the Accounts & Trade tab and select the Portfolio option. Then select the Activity & Orders tab. In the "Don't see the activity you're looking for?" section at the bottom of the page, select the "View orders for new issue bonds" link. The New Issue Order Details page will display. On the New Issue Order Details page, select the account for which you’ve submitted the order. To cancel an order, click Cancel next to the issue that you wish to update.

Attempts to cancel new issue municipal bond orders are performed on a best effort basis. There is no guarantee that an indication of interest can be deleted, in whole or in part.

Once an offering has been allocated, the securities are placed in your account. You can check your account history or positions on Fidelity.com to see if you received an allocation of securities. When you submitted an order, a notification was sent via email that you registered when you signed up for Fidelity alerts.

Once securities are allocated, you receive a written confirmation. For new issue municipal offerings, the official statement (OS) is available on MSRB's Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website at https://emma.msrb.org/. The OS contains the same type of information included in the preliminary document, along with amendments such as the exact size of the offering, the net proceeds going to the issuer, and the concession being given to the underwriter.

The Retail Order Period (ROP) available for customers to place an order for a new issue municipal bond can vary widely from issue to issue. Some of those conditions are outlined below:

• The ROP may only be a couple of hours or may last up to 2 days.
• Some CUSIPs may not be available for the entire duration of the ROP due to oversubscription.

ROPs generally open around mid-morning, for example, 10 a.m. ET. However, as some deals are priced at a spread to the Treasury, the ROP may be delayed by hours or rescheduled in a volatile marketplace.

The following serves as an illustration of the life of a new issue municipal bond issuance:

Deal announced

• Deal announcement can vary widely. Generally, customers may start to call in with questions about an upcoming deal about a week prior to the ROP, as they will have heard about the offering, or from another broker/dealer.

Preliminary pricing

• The marketplace will set an appropriate price for the series of bonds being offered. This is represented by the price and yield information available on that new issue municipal bond's Detailed Offerings page on Fidelity.com.

Retail Order Period

• The Retail Order Period can last anywhere from a couple of hours to 2 days. It is important for customers to monitor their alerts, as they will receive emails for upcoming offerings. Expected Order Period information is available on the alert, and on the New Issue Municipal page.
• ROPs can close early, if an issue becomes oversubscribed./li>
• ROPs can be delayed in the event of a volatile marketplace

Institutional Order Period

• The Institutional Order Period (IOP) generally occurs after the ROP and lasts 1 day.

Final pricing

• Final pricing is generally available the day after the IOP and is typically out either late morning or early afternoon.
• Final pricing levels may differ from preliminary pricing levels:
  
  • If final price is the same or better for the customer (price is lower/yield is higher), then customers cannot cancel their indication of interest (IOI) and will participate, subject to allocation.
  • If final price is worse for the customer (price is higher/yield is lower), then customers’ IOIs are filled unless they contact Fidelity to cancel their IOI. You have one hour from receipt of the repricing alert to cancel or adjust your order.

Allocation

• Allocation generally occurs the day following final pricing. Often, customers may receive full allocation, meaning if the order is, for example, 25 bonds, the customer will receive all 25. On occasion, an order will be oversubscribed. In these cases, customers might receive a partial or possibly even no allocation.

Balances

• If a deal is undersubscribed, Fidelity may post balances of new issues to its website.