Barclays has committed to becoming a market maker on MarketAxess’ all-to-all institutional fixed income credit markets order book, MarketAxess Live Markets.
Launched in 2019, 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 then 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 will contribute to price streaming for US investment grade corporate bonds, joining Goldman Sachs which became a market maker for Live Markets 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 recent 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.
“As a new innovation in the credit markets, a streaming order book requires commitment from all participants to succeed. It’s our belief that offering a diverse suite of trading protocols allows participants to engage with the market in the best way that meets their trading strategy and therefore drives greater market turnover,” said Richard Schiffman, head of open trading with MarketAxess.