“ It ' s knowing what to expect and then expecting the unexpected .”
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looking at European IG for example , the dispersion of where those bonds are held and where the availability is would mean that if I can go and get those forms from XYZ rather than just going to one person I ' m possibly going to pick off some better pricing . But having said that our North American desk embrace portfolio trading much more .
“ We ' ve always been a really big proponent of electronic trading . We don ' t like to give away all of our trade secrets but we do like to make sure that we ' re engaging
“ It ' s knowing what to expect and then expecting the unexpected .”
closely with the MTFs and the vendors to make sure that they ' re developing along the lines that can be useful not just to us but to the broader street .”
Formerly an entirely overthe-counter market , a growing portion of fixed income volumes in smaller size now take place on trading platforms . These incumbent trading venues have been central to much of the technological evolution in fixed income as they jostle to remain at the heart of execution .
Challenger venues have attempted to come to market as of late in the pursuit of share gain on the back of complaints that the current system is monopolised by those aforementioned incumbent venues – most recent was distributed ledger technology based LedgerEdge . However , on the eve of sitting down with Ruffles , the start-up bond trading platform confirmed it was closing down just three years after its establishment due to “ an extremely challenging funding environment ”.
“ It ' s a shame that they ' ve gone . It does show how difficult it is for a new vendor to break into the market ,” says Ruffles . “ There are vendors that are breaking into the market for different asset classes and working out where the gaps are . Very often the
24 // TheTRADE // Q3 2023