MARS Platform · Product Concept

Credit Tape

Corporate debt tells you who's borrowing and who's already in trouble. Almost nobody connects it to the whole story behind the company.

Proposal — not yet built
Junk bonds are back in the headlines — tight spreads, a wave of debt coming due, companies refinancing at rates far higher than when they first borrowed. The people asking about it want to know who's actually at risk, not just where a yield number sits today.

A credit desk that already knows who the company is

Phase 1 tracks what's buildable right now, entirely from data MARS already owns or is already building: when a company discloses new debt to the SEC, what terms it originally sold its bonds under, whether a private lender is already marking its loan down, and whether it's filed for bankruptcy. No new paid data required.

Real-time bond trading prices (FINRA's TRACE tape) would be the natural next layer — confirmed direct from FINRA's own fee schedule at roughly $18K–36K a year, a legitimate primary-source relationship and still well under Bloomberg/ICE — but that's a real, recurring cost, so it's parked as Phase 2 rather than assumed into the pitch.

How it's different

The way it's done today

  • A bond price or yield, by itself, on a terminal screen
  • Licensed from a reseller — Bloomberg, ICE, a ratings agency — expensive, and resold
  • No link to anything else happening at the company
  • Public bond data and private lending data sit in two industries that never talk to each other

Credit Tape

  • A company's new debt, bankruptcy filings, and private-lender markdowns, all on its full MARS record
  • Built entirely from filings MARS already ingests, or is already extending to — no new paid data feed
  • Every disclosure lands on a record that already has funding history, M&A, executives, lawsuits
  • Live bond trading prices (FINRA TRACE, ~$18K–36K/yr) are a scoped, costed Phase 2 — not assumed into the pitch

Built on the graph MARS already has

This isn't a new database. It's a new layer on the one that already exists. Every company in MARS already has one true identity — tied to its SEC registration and ticker, its executives, its funding history, its lawsuits, its private lending record. A bond doesn't start from zero; it lands on a record that's already deep.

One company SEC ticker + CIK Debt disclosures & filings — new Funding rounds M&A history Private lending Bankruptcies Lawsuits Executives
a bond lands on a record that's already this connected
01

No second identity system

A bond for a given company shows up on that company's existing MARS record automatically — not a separate lookup, not a separate spreadsheet to reconcile against the rest of what MARS already knows.

02

A ready-made stress signal

MARS already tracks when private lenders quietly mark down a company's loan. Phase 1 pairs that with new debt disclosures and bankruptcy filings on the same company — a real signal today. Live bond trading prices later would make the same company lighting up on three fronts at once a much louder warning than any one signal alone.

03

A trust score on every number

Every MARS data point already carries a quality grade — verified, supported, or flagged. Bond data would inherit the same discipline, so a client always knows exactly how solid a given number is, instead of taking it on faith.

What you could ask it

“Who's quietly taking on new debt?”

Every company that just disclosed a new credit facility, term loan, or bond issuance to the SEC — with whatever else is going on at that company (a lawsuit, an executive departure, a prior markdown) pulled straight from its own MARS record.

“Who's walking into a wall?”

Every junk-rated company with bonds maturing in the next 12 months, ranked by how much cash it actually has on hand to refinance with.

“Who's stressed and nobody's connected the dots?”

Companies already marked down by a private lender that also just filed for bankruptcy or disclosed a distressed new debt deal — a compounding signal only visible because both datasets live in the same graph.

Where it comes from

Source one

The official paperwork a company files with the SEC every time it takes on new debt or sells bonds to the public — coupon, maturity, size, covenants, and the credit rating at the time of sale.

Source two

MARS's own private-credit and bankruptcy substrate, already live — loan markdowns from private lenders and SEC bankruptcy filings, both already tracked for other parts of the platform.

Source three — Phase 2, parked

FINRA's trade-reporting mandate for live bond trading prices. Confirmed direct from FINRA's own Rule 7730 fee schedule at ~$18K–36K/yr — a real primary-source relationship, just not pursued right now on cost.

Phase 1 costs nothing beyond what MARS already spends — no paywalled ratings subscription, no new data license. Phase 2 (live trading prices) is a real, confirmed cost, not a vague future promise — which is exactly why it's parked until it's worth paying for.