October e-trading bond platforms; rates up, credit mixed

Dan Barnes
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Electronic bond trading and data platform MarketAxess has reported its monthly trading volume for October 2021 was US$619 billion with credit trading down 4% year-on-year (YoY) to US$208.3 billion and rates up 50% hitting US$410.7 billion in volume.

The firm reported rates average daily volume (ADV) of US$20 billion in the month, up 57% on the previous year, while credit ADV was up 0.8% to US$10.4 billion. In municipal bond markets ADV was US$128 million and total trading volume reached US$2.6 billion.

Separately, Tradeweb reported that US government bond ADV was up 77.5% YoY to US$148.9 billion and European government bond ADV was up 32.7% YoY to US$36.3 billion, with total cash rates volume hitting US$7.8 trillion in October.

Lee Olesky, Tradeweb CEO, said, “October 2021 was a record-breaking month for Tradeweb, with incredibly strong results in government bonds, rates derivatives and credit. The wide range of execution protocols we offer within those asset classes was centrally important to our clients, with robust usage of streams, request-for-market, portfolio trading, request-for-quote, and session-based trading. We believe the market participants we serve want to execute electronically, as well as digitize more of their trading workflows.”

The firm noted that activity in US government bonds was driven by a combination of factors including record trading across institutional and wholesale markets, boosted by streaming protocols, as well as the addition of the Nasdaq Fixed Income business. Activity in European government bond trading continued to benefit from strong activity in UK Gilts. Steady global government bond issuance, along with recent rising rates market volatility, remained supportive of trading.

In US credit Tradeweb’s credit ADV was up 25.8% YoY to US$6.6 billion and European credit ADV was up 15.2% YoY to US$1.8 billion, with total credit volume for cash instruments reaching US$203 billion for the month.

©Markets Media Europe, 2021
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