The acquisition of pre- and post-trade reporting firm Xtrakter by MarketAxess in March, has helped push second quarter revenues for the fixed-income trading specialist up by 34.3%, year-on-year.
In its Q2 statement, MarketAxess reported a significant increase in revenues and profit and also added to its market share.
Revenues reached a record of US$65.6 million during the second quarter of 2013, while pre-tax income was $31.5 million, an increase of 48.6% compared Q2 2012.
Information and post-trade services were a major contributor to the growth in revenues, with second quarter proceeds of US$7.2 million, up over 300% from US$1.8 million in the same period of 2012.
The growth was largely due it its acquisition of Xtrakter in March for £25.3 million. At the time of the deal, MarketAxess said it planned to extend Xtrakter products to its 1,000 buy-side clients.
The firm is also optimistic about growth prospects for the secondary market, with expected market developments likely to prove favourable to its business.
Richard McVey, chairman and CEO of MarketAxess, said that low levels of liquidity, which have resulted in higher transactions costs, and low levels of volatility have held the secondary fixed income market back in recent years.
"What we saw in June is when volatility picked up and created new trading opportunities, then market volumes go up. What we're working very hard on is providing new liquidity solutions to reduce transaction costs and combined with increased market volatility then we would be optimistic about the secondary market overall," he explained.
Trading volumes on the MarketAxess platform also reached a record high of US$187.7 billion in the three months to end of June 2013, up 29.6% from US$144.8 billion in the same period of 2012. MarketAxess now holds an estimated market share of 14.1% in US high-grade instruments.
The firm also confirmed it is not currently charging for credit default swap transactions and does not expect to begin charging before the end of the fourth quarter.