Electronic trading levels in US investment grade credit hit the halfway mark in July, up one percentage point year-on-year to take 50% of notional volumes.
High yield bonds did not see the same trend, with e-trading levels falling three percentage points YoY to 31%. This represents no movement month-on-month (MoM).
Coalition Greenwich notes that amid overall market growth, dealer-to-client trading is taking a smaller percentage of total volumes. Between 2017 and 2025 (year to date), its share fell from 83.5% to 75.2%. Interdealer trading now represents 17.9% of the market, up from 14.1% in 2017, while alternative trading systems (ATS) now take 6.9% of total volumes – up from 2.4% in 2017.
Report authors Kevin McPartland, market structure and technology head of research at the firm, and Neha Jain observed, “The surge in post-pandemic retail bond-buying played a large part in this change. While not all ATS trading is retail in nature, the majority is in smaller size trades that often originate from wealth managers and the high-net-worth clients they support.”
Portfolio trading continues to be popular, representing a record 21.6% of all e-traded volume in July. Tradeweb leads the way here, taking approximately 58% of the portfolio trading pie.
Overall, average daily trade sizes were up 10% YoY and up 4% MoM to US$411k.
Average daily notional volumes (ADNV) were up 14% YoY to US$48 billion, in line with June’s results. Year-to-date, ADNV sits at US$53 billion – a record figure.
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