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 builtPhase 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is live, already in MARS, found with the three Phase 1 signals and nothing else. No TRACE, no new data.
All three Phase 1 signals, in order: a private lender's own mark on BioXcel's loan slides from 0.95 to 0.88 over 12 quarters — a declining view of credit quality, visible well before anything else breaks. The company files for bankruptcy in August 2026. Three days later, it discloses $77M in fresh financing from the same lender plus a sovereign wealth fund — classic debtor-in-possession financing. All three facts live on one company record today, for $0.
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.
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.
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.