System and method for listing offerings of commercial paper and other interests

Abstract

A system and method for electronically evaluating and trading CP and short-term interests is presented. The system includes a buyer terminal coupled to a trading system. The buyer terminal includes a display device for displaying offerings of the interests and an input device for entering one or more investment criteria. The system includes a data store of offerings of a plurality of trading parties (e.g., issuers and/or dealers). The system also includes a server implementing search engine functions for selectively identifying responsive offerings and retrieving from the data store information relating to the responsive offerings of the plurality of trading parties. The system transmits the retrieved offerings information to the buyer terminal for display. Preferably, the offerings information of at least two trading parties is displayed in an integrated fashion. The system may present a summary view of the offerings information with a count of the identified offerings of each of the trading parties. The investment criteria include buyer-defined values for terms of the offerings such as, for example, maturity, minimum size, minimum yield and credit ratings of the interests. The investment criteria may also include parameters that specify an order for displaying the retrieved offerings. A method for electronically evaluating short-term interests includes the steps of: entering investment criteria; selectively retrieving offerings information from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria; and presenting an integrated display of the retrieved offerings information. In one embodiment, investment criteria may be stored. The stored criteria may be retrieved and applied to identify offerings of the plurality of trading parties such that current offerings of the interests may be identified over a period of time.

1 . A computer system useful for evaluating trading interests, comprising: 
 a buyer terminal having an output device for presenting offerings of the interests and an input device for entering one or more investment criteria; and    a computer coupled to the buyer terminal, a data store coupled to the computer including offerings of a plurality of trading parties, the computer including programming for selectively identifying from the data store offerings of the plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria, the computer providing information related to identified offerings responsive to the investment criteria of all trading parties for presentation together on the output device.    
   
   
       2 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the computer provides to the output device a presentation, in an integrated fashion, of information related to identified offerings of at least two of the plurality of trading parties.  
   
   
       3 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the computer provides to the output device a presentation of information related to identified offerings in a summary view, the summary view including a count of responsive offerings of each of the plurality of trading parties.  
   
   
       4 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 3 , wherein responsive to a selection entered via said input device identifying a trading party presented in the summary view, the computer provides a listing of all offerings from the data store of the one selected trading party for presentation on the output device.  
   
   
       5 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the investment criteria includes buyer-defined values for terms of the offerings.  
   
   
       6 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the investment criteria includes buyer-defined values for at least one of maturity, size, yield, credit ratings and trading party of the offerings.  
   
   
       7 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the investment criteria includes parameters that specify an order for presenting offerings information retrieved from the data store.  
   
   
       8 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the computer system includes memory for storing the investment criteria, the computer upon command selectively identifying the offerings in the data store based on investment criteria stored in the memory.  
   
   
       9 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , where the computer comprises programming for selectively granting buyers authority to view offerings of the trading parties, and for selectively preventing retrieval and display of offerings to unauthorized buyers.  
   
   
       10 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the computer comprises programming for selectively granting buyers authority to execute offerings of dealers.  
   
   
       11 . The computer system as set forth in  claim 1 , wherein the computer comprises programming for selectively limiting access to offerings of predetermined ones of the plurality of trading parties.  
   
   
       12 . In a computer system for trading interests including a plurality of buyer terminals having an output device and an input device, and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals by a communication system, the improvement comprising a data store coupled to the central computer including offerings of a plurality of trading parties, the central computer including programming for selectively identifying from the data store offerings of a plurality of trading parties responsive to at least one investment criterion entered via an input device of a buyer terminal, the central computer transmitting to the buyer terminal for presentation on the output device the information related to identified offerings of each trading party having an offering responsive to the at least one investment criterion..  
   
   
       13 . In a computer system for trading interests including a plurality of buyer terminals having an output device and an input device, and a central computer linked to the buyer terminal by a communication system, the improvement comprising a data store coupled to the central computer including offerings of a plurality of trading parties, the central computer including programming for selectively identifying from the data store offerings of a plurality of trading parties responsive to at least one investment criterion entered via an input device of a buyer terminal, the central computer transmitting to the buyer terminal for presentation on the output device the information related to identified offerings, including a count of identified offerings of each of trading party having an offering responsive to at least one said investment criterion.  
   
   
       14 . A method for evaluating trading interests, comprising: 
 entering at least one investment criterion into a computer system in which are stored trading interests of a plurality of parties;    retrieving information relating to offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the at least one investment criterion; and    presenting, in an integrated fashion, the retrieved offerings information of the plurality of trading parties.    
   
   
       15 . The method as set forth in  claim 14 , comprising for each trading party for which offerings information was retrieved, presenting a count of the retrieved offerings.  
   
   
       16 . The method as set forth in  claim 14 , comprising; 
 sorting the retrieved offerings information in accordance with sorting information included within the investment criteria, wherein the step of presenting includes presenting the retrieved offerings information in the sorting information.    
   
   
       17 . The method as set forth in  claim 14 , comprising storing entered investment criteria and upon request, retrieving the stored investment criteria and applying the retrieved investment criteria to again retrieve offerings of the plurality of dealers.  
   
   
       18 . The method as set forth in  claim 13 , comprising a trading party granting authority to a buyer to view offerings information of the trading party and preventing retrieval and display of offerings information of the trading party to unauthorized buyers.  
   
   
       19 . The method as set forth in  claim 13 , in combination with a method for trading offerings, comprising the step of a trading party granting authority to a buyer to execute offerings of that trading party.  
   
   
       20 . The method as set forth in  claim 13 , comprising the step of a buyer limiting that buyer's access to offerings of predetermined ones of the plurality of trading parties.  
   
   
       21 . A method for electronically evaluating offerings of interests, comprising: 
 entering one or more investment criteria;    identifying offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria on a party by party basis; and    presenting information relating to identified offerings of each of the plurality of trading parties in an integrated fashion on a party by party basis.    
   
   
       22 . A method for electronically evaluating interests, comprising: 
 entering one or more investment criteria, the investment criteria including presentation preferences;    identifying offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria; and    presenting information related to identified offerings of each of the plurality of trading parties in an order responsive to the presentation preferences.    
   
   
       23 . A method for electronically trading interests, comprising: 
 entering one or more investment criteria;    identifying offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria;    presenting, in an integrated fashion, information related to identified offerings of the plurality of trading parties;    selecting an offering for which information is presented; and    completing a trading order for the selected offering.    
   
   
       24 . In a computer system for trading short term interests including a plurality of buyer terminals, a plurality of dealer and/or issuer terminals and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals and the dealer and/or issuer terminals by a communications system, the improvement comprising memory accessible by the central computer in which is stored information of specific dealers or issuers authorizing presentation of offerings information of the specific dealer or issuer on a specific buyer terminal, the computer including programming which provides offerings information only to authorized buyer terminals.  
   
   
       25 . In a computer system for trading short term interests including a plurality of buyer terminals, a plurality of dealer and/or issuer terminals and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals and the dealer and/or issuer terminals by a communications system, the improvement comprising memory accessible by the central computer in which is stored information of specific dealers or issuers authorizing presentation of offerings information of the specific dealer or issuer on a specific buyer terminal, and information of specific dealers or users authorizing the specific buyer terminal to execute a trade on an offering about which information is authorized to be presented on that buyer terminal, the computer including programming which provides offerings information only to authorized buyer terminals and which executes trades requested only by authorized buyer terminals.  
   
   
       26 . In a computer system for trading short term interests including a plurality of buyer terminals, a plurality of dealer and/or issuer terminals and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals and the dealer and/or issuer terminals by a communications system, the improvement comprising memory accessible by the central computer in which is stored information of buyers authorizing presentation of offerings information of specific dealers or issuers on a respective buyer terminal, the computer including programming which provides offerings information only of authorized dealers or issuers to the respective buyer terminal.