The TRADE 68 - Q2 2021 | Page 9

NEWS UPDATE
FIXED INCOME

Barclays streams firm pricing to Live Markets order book at MarketAxess

Barclays is actively streaming firm pricing for US investment grade corporate bonds to the live order book for credit markets from MarketAxess .

MarketAxess said the UK investment bank has committed to becoming a market maker on its all-to-all institutional fixed income credit markets order book , known as Live Markets .
Live Markets leverages the anonymous all-to-all open trading marketplace to provide a single view of two-way , actionable prices for the most active US investment grade bonds , including recently issued debt , benchmark issues and news-driven securities .
It gives institutional credit investors and dealers the ability to place resting live orders in the market and engage firm prices provided by dealers and investors .
Barclays joins other institutions in streaming prices via Live Markets , such as Goldman Sachs , which became a market maker for the order book in October last year .
“ As the credit market evolves , exploring new ways to both provide and access liquidity is important ,” said Drew Mogavero , co-head of US credit trading at Barclays . “ We ’ re committed to leveraging technology to service our customers and providing real-time , systematic liquidity to our customers on Live Markets is one way we can achieve that .”
All-to-all trading , which allows the buy- and sell-side to transact anonymously regardless of firm type , has been on the rise in the last year as many participants continue to chase best execution . A report by Coalition Greenwich found that all-to-all trading accounted for 12 % of investment grade corporate bond volumes in 2020 , up from 8 % in the year prior .
According to MarketAxess , volume conducted via open trading reached a record $ 246.3 billion in the first quarter of this year and represents just over a third of its total global credit trading volumes .
Using the all-to-all open trading market , asset managers can take on the role of liquidity provider for dealers and each other . The concept was considered revolutionary when it was introduced a decade ago .
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