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MarketAxess uses unique
data to improve client-to-
dealer liquidity matching
and best execution
Anju Sima, UK client and sales lead at MarketAxess, tells The TRADE about the firm’s
newly launched Smart Select mechanism, which uses the firm’s unique data sets and
automation technology to help buy-side clients optimise liquidity provider selection.
What is Smart Select and why is it
so significant?
Anju Sima: Put simply, it is a
smarter, faster, data-driven
approach to selecting the right
liquidity provider. By layering
clever selection criteria on top of
our broad trading and transaction
data, we can help buy-side clients
to quickly select the “optimal”
dealer, or dealers, for their partic-
ular liquidity needs.
It’s significant for a number of
reasons. Firstly, it’s providing a
new way to unlock the potential of
the unique data we provide – ag-
gregated Trax transactional mar-
ket-wide data and MarketAxess
historical trade performance data
– to improve liquidity discovery. It
gives the trader greater confi-
dence that the dealers in the lists
can match their execution needs.
Secondly, it can also be built into
our automation mechanism –
Auto-X – for low touch trading
22 // TheTrade // Fall 2019
aligned to pre-determined client
priorities.
Our buy-side clients have cer-
tainly driven this development,
but it’s important to note that
Smart Select can benefit both
buy- and sell-side. For instance,
by removing some of the natural
human bias in dealer selection,
it allows dealers with real, not
presumed, historical performance
and actual liquidity in a certain
area to come to the forefront. As a
result, we’re sending dealers client
inquiry that, they have told us,
they care to price. Anju Sima, UK client and sales lead,
MarketAxess
How is it different to other
products on the market?
AS: I would say it’s in the quality
and depth of the data, and then
how we look at that data to help
the client make a decision. In
analysing dealer compatibility, we
look platform-wide across the top
75% of clients they serve – en- suring that we reflect their best
liquidity profile to the client.
We also allow the client to
search at the individual ISIN level,