Next up in our star-studded Editors’ Choice awards nominees line up are the four firms shortlisted for this year’s Outstanding Fixed Income Trading Venue award. Up for the award this year are four names that need little introduction: Bloomberg MTF, LedgerEdge, MarketAxess’ Open Trading and Tradeweb. Find out what they’ve been up to this year, below.
Bloomberg MTF
Available to the buy- and sell-side, Bloomberg’s MTF is used by more than 1000 institutions for request for quote (RFQ) and request for trade (RFT). The firm has proved itself committed to enhancing its offering in the last year, with several new products launched and others in the pipeline. These include a new all-to-all global service, Bloomberg Bridge, launched in March, that supports intermediated trading for corporate and emerging markets bonds. With the support of a Goldman Sachs intermediation desk clients can launch or respond to RFQ tickets.
The platform has also sought to continue developing its portfolio trading (PT) remit as the trend continues to rise in popularity globally. Its PT solution allows the comparison of basket-level and individual bond prices to BVAL and other third-party prices. In June last year, Bloomberg launched its portfolio trading basket builder including new enhancements such as the accommodation of mixed-side and multi-currency baskets.
Elsewhere, the fixed income platform provider launched ETF list trading for clients and has confirmed the impending launch of its Tradeable Trackers – a suite of tradable indices based on the Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices.
Bloomberg also played a pivotal role in the development of the Asian bonds market as one of the founding members of the Southbound Connect service. At the end of last year, the firm and the China Foreign Exchange Trading System (CFETS) jointly launched indicative pricing from Hong Kong market makers using Bloomberg Southbound Bond Connect solutions.
With its eye constantly on the horizon, Bloomberg MTF is now currently working on the launch of an electronic trading offering in partnership with Euroclear and Sunthay that will see them create a front-to-back solution for bank-guaranteed repo.
LedgerEdge
Start-up corporate bond trading platform LedgerEdge has proved itself a worthy contender to the incumbent platforms within the fixed income markets within just a few months. With a pilot launched earlier this year, the firm is the market’s first regulated distributed ledger technology (DLT) trading platform.
Just a few months into its infancy and the platform has begun onboarding over 30 asset managers and over 70 other firms on the buy- and sell-side. Using smart contracts, LedgerEdge aims to give traders better control over their data and more protection over their privacy. The platform claims to offer a solution to the drying up primary issuance space as traders turn to secondary markets – offering liquidity in the corporate debt markets by allowing traders to trade confidentially in less liquid bonds.
It partnered with thinkFolio in May to increase access to corporate bond liquidity by giving users access to IHS Markit’s investment management platform. The partnership also allowed traders to access inventory, receive indications of interest and quotes in real-time, as well as being provided with the offer to place orders in the corporate bond market.
Open Trading, MarketAxess
MarketAxess’ flagship all-to-all platform has demonstrated significant growth despite market conditions caused by the macroeconomic climate. It offers live markets in active bonds, all-to-all request for quote (RFQ), automated liquidity provisions and anonymous matching sessions at mid-markets.
In the second quarter MarketAxess saw composite bond market share of 20%, reflecting a strong performance in overall global credit. Over one third of MarketAxess’ total credit trading volume during the second quarter was executed via Open Trading and the platform provider estimates it delivered $238 million in estimated transaction costs as a result.
A record number of asset managers reportedly acted as liquidity providers on the platform during the peak volatility witnessed in 2020. MarketAxess has shown commitment to the expansion of its operations in the last year with several partnerships with major participants. Most prominent was the consortium it created with Virtu Financial and several leading liquidity providers in the ETF space, including Citadel Securities, Flow Traders, Jane Street Capital and BlackRock to encourage the growth of the RFQ-hub.
Tradeweb
Tradeweb Markets needs little introduction, connecting major institutions across 65 countries and for more than 40 fixed income products. Last year saw the platform achieve in excess of over $1 trillion in daily average volumes, while the use of its Automated Intelligent Execution (AiEX) rose to $910 billion and clients executed over $300 billion in portfolio trades.
It was also a year of inorganic growth for the platform, after it successfully completed its acquisition of Nasdaq Fixed Income for $190 million. The platform provider has played an instrumental role in the Southbound Channel of Bond Connect project – the flagship initiative aimed at allowing China’s onshore investors to trade international bonds.
Tradeweb’s growth has continued in 2022, with Jump Trading joining its network as a liquidity provider, and with the launch of its Spotlight Dealer Diversity Program designed to promote diverse dealers on the Tradeweb platform. Tradeweb also announced its collaboration with Refinitiv’s FXall, now part of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), to develop and link trading workflows in emerging markets bonds and emerging markets currency swaps. Tradeweb also added new functionalities for portfolio trading, including increased line item capacity and the ability to trade on spread at market close for US Credit.