With sweeping regulatory reforms and plunging interest rates, this decade brought massive challenges to fixed income market participants. The marketplace responded with wide-reaching developments in financial services technology, and an explosion in multi-asset trading.  The journey was rarely linear, but trading volumes set new records across markets virtually each year.  

Across markets and around the world, trading teams needed to find a way to do more with less. Trading strategies had to be adapted, and transaction costs became a critical discussion. At Tradeweb, we focused on making ourselves useful, using our connections across asset classes, regions, and clients to help our customers automate the busywork, operate seamlessly across time zones and assets, and do what they really just want to do anyway: find the other side of the trade.

In the passages that follow, we take a look back at some of the dynamics in fixed income markets over the past...

Mid-yields on 10-year government bonds finished 2019 – and capped off the decade – with across-the-board increases. In fact, amid an ever-uncertain monetary policy environment, several government bond markets tracked by Tradeweb saw their yields rise by double-digits over the course of December. In some cases, this helped push yields either closer or into positive territory.

The biggest move came from the Australian 10-year benchmark note, whose yield climbed 33 basis points to end the month at 1.37%. While the Reserve Bank of Australia did not change its cash target rate at its December meeting, it did institute three cuts over 2019, bringing the rate down from 1.5% at the end of 2018 to its current 0.75%. According to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the country’s economy grew by a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in the third quarter of 2019.

Canada’s 10-year government bond saw the second largest move, with its...

2019 has certainly been an exciting year for Tradeweb, packed with impressive numbers.

In April, we went public with the year’s top performing IPO over $1 billion, followed by an additional offering in October to raise in total $2.1 billion. Our traded volumes have kept on rising, facilitating more than $730 billion each day in rates, credit, equities and money market transactions globally. We traded more than $1 trillion on 19 days so far, and experienced new records in almost every business in which we operate, including repo and equity derivatives, which are up 27% and 63% on 2018, respectively.

In China, we celebrated the second anniversary of our Bond Connect platform, with more than $400 billion traded and new functionality developed. We enhanced our block allocation solution, and introduced list trading, dealer streaming prices and CFETS’ iDeal messaging tool. We also became the first – and still only - Bond Connect...

Launch of list trading feature evolves traders’ CIBM execution workflowWhen it comes to the Chinese bond market, no one understands global investors’ needs better than Tradeweb. We’ve had the unique privilege to be involved in the design, development and implementation of the Bond Connect initiative from the very start, thanks to our long-term expertise in global fixed income markets, extensive client network and advanced technology offering. Being the first trading link to Bond Connect enabled us to amass invaluable experience in further streamlining buy-side traders’ access to the China Interbank Bond Market (CIBM).Last year Tradeweb became the first access platform to facilitate pre- and post-trade allocations on Bond Connect, allowing offshore investors to trade on behalf of multiple funds in one block transaction. In addition, Tradeweb is still the only Bond Connect platform offering automated trading for Chinese Bonds. Via our...

This holiday season Tradeweb Europe teamed up with the charity organisation, Dreams Come True, to host various events to help children and young people with serious and life-limiting medical conditions to fulfil their dreams and create long lasting memories. We invite you to watch our video which captures some of the special moments from the last few months, and from all at Tradeweb may you have a special holiday and successful new year.

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Our president, Billy Hult, recently spoke with Duncan Wood, global editorial director for Infopro Digital, about the changing face of trading, how Tradeweb stacks up against it's competitors and much more in this episode of Waters Wavelength Podcast.

The following data is derived from trading activity on the Tradeweb Markets institutional European- and U.S.-listed ETF platforms.

EUROPEAN-LISTED ETFsTotal traded volumeMore than EUR 31.1 billion was executed on the Tradeweb European-listed ETF marketplace in November. The proportion of transactions completed via Tradeweb’s Automated Intelligent Execution tool (AiEX) was 75.1%.

Adriano Pace, head of equities (Europe) at Tradeweb, said: “The platform had its third best month on record, just as European ETF assets under management are about to hit the EUR 1 trillion milestone. Despite range bound market conditions, trading activity was steady throughout November, and was primarily concentrated on equity instruments.”

Volume breakdownFixed income ETFs saw net selling during the month. Conversely, ‘buys’ in their equity- and commodity-based counterparts surpassed ‘sells’ by 10 and two percentage points, respectively....

The global bond market sell-off continued in November, pushing many European benchmark bond yields closer to positive territory. At month end, nearly 53.1% of European government bonds closed with a negative yield, down from 57.6% in October and 63.1% in September.The largest mover was the Italian 10-year note, whose mid-yield surged 30 basis points to end November at 1.23%. Italy’s Finance and Economy Minister Roberto Gualtieri predicted that fourth-quarter economic growth would be slightly positive, and that a 0.6% rise for 2020 was “widely reachable.”Greece’s 10-year government bond yield saw the second largest shift. It finished the month 26 basis points higher at 1.30%, following a drop of 23 basis points in October. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Hellenic Fiscal Council suggested that economic growth in the country could be 2.4% and 3.5%, respectively, in 2020. Portugal and Spain’s 10-year...

Amid a crop of disappointing tech IPOs, Tradeweb’s stock market debut in April felt like a coming-of-age party, heavy with symbolism and bursting with promise.

The company, which launched its first electronic trading platform in 1998 with financial backing from a consortium of banks, has long been viewed – and sometimes maligned – as a hostage to the interests of big dealers.

Much has changed since the early days. Thomson Financial acquired the company in 2004 and later sold a minority stake to a group of banks in 2008. Last year, Blackstone bought a majority stake in Thomson’s finance and risk business, renaming it Refinitiv, and spinning off Tradeweb in the IPO. Refinitiv, which is being acquired by London Stock Exchange Group, remains the majority owner.

Through it all, the ‘bank-owned’ tag has stuck.

“That sticks in people’s heads, and it’s a bit of a branding challenge,” says Lee Olesky, co-founder and chief executive of Tradeweb Markets. “And...

This article originally appeared on ETFExpress.com here.

Tradeweb: Best ETF Platform – Electronic platform trading provider Tradeweb launched its US ETF platform in 2016 after a lengthy period of consulting with existing European ETF customers as well as US fixed income clients.

Adam Gould, head of US equities at Tradeweb, says: “Anything we do starts with discussions with clients, so our first conversations were with existing Tradeweb users who had embraced our European ETF platform and found value in its competitive pricing via RFQ, order management system integration capabilities and overall functionality.” 

ETF block trading in the US at that time was still primarily done on ‘phones and in chats’ to quote Gould, a route which could prove inefficient at getting the best possible price in a timely manner. Tradeweb US, winner of Best ETF Platform in the ETF Express US awards for 2019, brought an...

Amid a crop of disappointing tech IPOs, Tradeweb’s stock market debut in April felt like a coming-of-age party, heavy with symbolism and bursting with promise.

The company, which launched its first electronic trading platform in 1998 with financial backing from a consortium of banks, has long been viewed – and sometimes maligned – as a hostage to the interests of big dealers.

Much has changed since the early days. Thomson Financial acquired the company in 2004 and later sold a minority stake to a group of banks in 2008. Last year, Blackstone bought a majority stake in Thomson’s finance and risk business, renaming it Refinitiv, and spinning off Tradeweb in the IPO. Refinitiv, which is being acquired by London Stock Exchange Group, remains the majority owner.

Through it all, the ‘bank-owned’ tag has stuck.

“That sticks in people’s heads, and it’s a bit of a branding challenge,” says Lee Olesky, co-founder and chief executive of Tradeweb Markets. “And...

The $4 trillion municipal bond market is in a state of flux. Since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on December 22, 2017, the twin dynamics of limited new issuance (until the recent taxable refunding bonanza) and SALT deduction cap- induced demand have driven record amounts of individual investors’ cash into municipal bond separate accounts and mutual funds.

Muni separate accounts now boast a whopping $600bn in assets, three times the amount held in 2010. What’s more, after 46 consecutive weeks of inflows, muni funds now hold $739bn, more than double their holdings in 2010.

As new issue supply has waned and investor appetite only grown more insatiable, separate account and mutual fund managers have been forced to turn to the secondary market to make up the difference. Consequently, spreads have been compressed significantly and absolute municipal yields are near all-time lows, making alpha generation increasingly difficult without reaching down the credit...