Fixed income platform provider MarketAxess traded record volumes in March this year across credit and its all-to-all platform Open Trading.
MarketAxess confirmed total credit average daily trading volume reached a record $12.7 billion, with a total credit trading volume of $292.6 billion. Open Trading credit trading volume also surged to a record $94.4 billion.
Open Trading is an all-to-all platform that allows buy- and sell-side firms to connect anonymously through a central network to improve liquidity and reduce transaction costs. Speaking during MarketAxess’ fourth quarter 2020 earnings call in January, chief executive Rick McVey revealed that Open Trading grew to a record 33% of the firm’s traded volume, up from 29% in 2019.
“Estimated transaction cost savings from Open Trading skyrocketed to $1.1 billion for the full year. Investors and dealers both had record order flow into our Open Trading liquidity pool in 2020,” McVey commented on the earnings call.
“Open Trading saw sustained growth even though market conditions normalised in the second half of the year, demonstrating the central role of our marketplace in today’s credit market.”
In April last year at the height of the market volatility due to the global pandemic, MarketAxess revealed that a record number of asset managers acted as liquidity providers on Open Trading. McVey said a record 900 firms provided liquidity during the period, with a majority of 700 being on the buy-side.
“We did see asset managers taking advantage of opportunities when there was heavy selling in the market, and we saw dealers taking advantage of using the platform to take liquidity when they needed to reduce risk. We think that this is an important quarter in terms of the advancement of all-to-all trading,” McVey said at the time.
Total trading volume in March at MarketAxess this year was $689.6 billion, including $292.6 billion in credit volume and $397 billion in rates. These figures are up from total trading volume the month prior of $610.4 billion, with $225.3 billion in credit and $385.1 billion in rates.