The highly competitive corporate bond market saw average daily volumes converge in the US across electronic trading venues in February. The DESK has exclusively gained access to data showing the blow-by-blow action across investment grade and high yield trading between platforms.
Source: The DESK, company reports
The leader in US credit, MarketAxess, had a 14.6% increase in US high-grade ADV, while US high-yield ADV stood at US$1.4 billion, down 37.1% YoY but reflecting the great spike of activity it saw in the same month last year.
For Tradeweb, fully electronic US credit ADV was up 49.9% YoY to US$7.7 billion, attributed to increased client adoption of Tradeweb protocols, the firm noted, particularly request-for-quote (RFQ), portfolio trading and Tradeweb AllTrade.
Trumid reported ADV of US$6.4 billion in February, up 73% YoY, while the firm said its high yield momentum continued into February with a record number of users engaging across all Trumid trading protocols driving ADV and market share to record highs.
Looking at the figures since January 2022, it is clear that MarketAxess has seen greater outperformance at points of market stress, such as Q1 2023, however its rivals are closing ground.
Using ADV data gained exclusively by The DESK, we are now able to compare the different rating categories of credit. In investment grade trading, Tradeweb’s volumes were about 60% higher in February on the previous year, while Trumid’s were up 80%.
Source: The DESK, company reports
In high yield, a more striking difference is that in February, Trumid broke away from Tradeweb with whom it has tussled for second place since at least September 2022, to clearly become number two for electronic high yield trading. While MarketAxess has seen a gradual reduction in HY volume – yet still with greater outperformance than rivals at points, Tradeweb has seen a mild incline and Trumid more pronounced growth.
Source: The DESK, company reports
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