So, I got this idea buzzing in my head about the ‘dim sum bond index’. Sounds kinda tasty, right? I kept hearing about these offshore Renminbi bonds and figured, hey, maybe I should track them somehow. Just wanted to see what the fuss was about, maybe get a feel for that market without diving in deep.
First thing I did was hit the internet. Typed in “dim sum bond index” and variations of that. Expected to find some neat chart or a simple list. Well, I found names alright. Big financial institutions supposedly have these indexes. But getting your hands on the actual components, the methodology, or even just recent performance data? That was another story. Felt like everything useful was hidden behind a subscription or just wasn’t available to a regular Joe like me.
Okay, DIY time?
I thought, alright, maybe I can cobble something together myself. How tough could it really be? Just need a list of bonds, maybe their yields, and average them out or something. So, I started hunting for lists of actual dim sum bonds.
- Checked out some financial news sites known for covering Asian markets.
- Tried looking at exchange listings, though figuring out which exchange listed what was confusing.
- Scoured through issuer information, trying to find CNH denominated bonds specifically.
Man, that was rough. The information was all over the place. Some lists were old. Some bonds had already matured. Details like coupon rates, maturity dates, and especially current yields were incredibly hard to find consistently. It wasn’t like looking up stocks, that’s for sure.
Trying to make sense of it
After spending way too much time digging, I had a small, messy list of bonds. Maybe a dozen or so where I felt I had some reliable info. Okay, what next? An index needs a calculation, right?
I opened up a spreadsheet. Didn’t need anything fancy. Just started plugging in the details I found. Issuer, maturity, coupon rate. Finding reliable, current yield data was the real killer. Market prices weren’t easily accessible. So, I ended up using coupon rates mostly, which I know isn’t the right way to gauge market performance, but it was the best I could consistently find for my little list.
I tried calculating a simple average yield, just to see something. Then I thought about weighting them by issue size, but finding accurate, comparable issue sizes added another layer of frustration. It felt like I was building a house on quicksand.
What I figured out
Basically, building even a simple dim sum bond index from scratch is a massive pain. Especially if you’re not plugged into expensive data feeds. The market isn’t as transparent or easy to track for individuals as, say, US Treasuries.
My little spreadsheet experiment? It ended up being a very rough, probably inaccurate list that didn’t really tell me much. It mostly taught me why those professional indexes exist and why they cost money. Someone has to do the hard work of gathering, verifying, and standardizing all that data constantly.
So, my grand plan to build my own index kinda fizzled out. I realized if I really wanted to follow that market, I’d probably have to rely on the summaries from the big providers or focus on tracking a couple of specific bonds that I could find better information on. It gave me a newfound appreciation for the complexity behind those simple index numbers you see quoted.