Goldman Sachs launched its new bond trading platform, G Sessions, late last week, giving US institutional investors another avenue for sourcing fixed income liquidity.
G Sessions runs short matching sessions that build up interest in high-grade and investment grade corporate bonds over a period of two-to-three minutes. So far, the platform four sessions in the two days it has been operated, generating customer trading volume of approximately US$150 million.
The new platform is not a matching system, but relies on Goldman Sachs acting as a market maker, with the bank posting a minimum level of liquidity through the day.
Goldman Sachs has indicated that if it is not able to match buy and sell orders in a given session, the residual positions will be managed by the bank’s internal bond traders. The firm has also said it is open to expanding beyond corporate bonds, depending on client demand.
Rising demand from US investors for a centralised market to trade bonds has helped trigger a proliferation of fixed income trading venues. Asset manager BlackRock is also said to be building its own bond trading platform to capitalise on increasing electronification in the asset class.