A few weeks back I had a great conversation with Liquidnet’s head of Fixed Income trading and the head of InteractiveData’s evaluated pricing service. Both firms provide tools to the market that hope to improve transparency and ultimately lubricate...

When Bill Gross left PIMCO many in the market were concerned that the expected outflows would crush bond prices as they were forced to sell. This turned out to not be the case, and we shouldn’t really be surprised. Major market participants like...

We recently published new research examining the use of Fixed Income ETFs by institutional investors.  Our analysis found that the increasing acceptance of ETFs as an institutional (rather than retail) investment tool coupled with challenged...

A crisis is a crisis because most people didn't see it coming. Unexpected events freaks people out causing a bad chain of events - a crisis. So despite evidence that a liquidity crisis is on the horizon in the bond market, wide spread recognition...

Our conversations with dealers over the past few months have left us wondering if volume weighted market share is the right metric for gauging success in fixed income dealing.  In past years market share always brought with it bragging rights,...

The market has been talking about this since at least 2009:  swaps clearing will reduce systemic risk and take most of the counterparty risk out of the swaps market.  Yet despite this risk reduction, regulators still seem determined...

The European Commission, ESMA and the FCA appear to be including fixed income in new payment for research requirements in MiFID II and EMiR by not explicitly excluding fixed income research. The question is whether a service can be viewed as an...

We might be getting a little bit closer to understanding whether or not the changes in the capital markets are cyclical or structural.  We view volatility - or the lack thereof - as a major factor impacting profitability across financial...

The corporate bond market is starting to feel a lot like the swaps market did in 2010.  There is no electronic trading mandate for corporate bonds of course, but a proliferation of new bond trading platforms and initiatives is upon us akin to...

Last fall we published research that showed how trading in the interest rate swaps market has become even more concentrated with the top five dealers since Dodd-Frank, rather than more competitive as regulators had hoped.  It should come as no...