Flow Traders takes a new market position as an active liquidity provider on MarketAxess

By Edlyn Cardoza

Flow Traders and MarketAxess Holdings Inc. recently announced that Flow Traders has committed to become a name-disclosed liquidity provider in U.S. high yield corporate bonds, Euro-denominated investment grade and high yield bonds and emerging market sovereign bonds through the MarketAxess trading platform. Flow Traders is also actively contributing streaming prices as a market maker for U.S. high yield corporate bonds on the anonymous Live Markets™ order book.

Following many years of providing anonymous liquidity through MarketAxess’ Open Trading marketplace, Flow Traders is now becoming a name-disclosed liquidity provider on the MarketAxess trading platform for global credit trading products. This ultimately allows institutional investor clients to select Flow Traders by name when submitting a disclosed inquiry, enhancing anonymous liquidity already provided through Open Trading. 

Ramon Balje, Head of Fixed Income EMEA, Flow Traders, commented, “The evolution in the corporate bond market continues to accelerate, mainly driven by developments in technology and the availability of higher quality data. Flow Traders is a strong advocate of bringing greater transparency, cost reduction and improved efficiency. Therefore, we’re thrilled to expand our offering by becoming an active liquidity provider on the MarketAxess trading platform.” 

Flow Traders are also actively contributing streaming prices in U.S. high yield to the MarketAxess Live Markets order book. Leveraging the anonymous all-to-all Open Trading marketplace, Live Markets provides a single view of two-way, actionable prices for the most active U.S. investment grade and U.S. high yield bonds, including recently issued debt, benchmark issues and news-driven securities. Live Markets 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 with a single click. Flow Traders joins Barclays, Goldman Sachs and another streaming liquidity provider as dedicated market makers for Live Markets.

Matheus Pereira, Head of Fixed Income Americas, Flow Traders, commented, “We are delighted to become a name-disclosed liquidity provider on the MarketAxess trading platform. This is another proof point that market participants are looking to connect with alternative liquidity providers like Flow Traders. To expand our offering on MarketAxess further, we will also be contributing streaming prices for U.S. high yield corporate bonds to the Live Markets order book, another mark of our commitment to innovation.”  

Richard Schiffman, Head of Open Trading with MarketAxess, added, “Flow Traders is a true change maker, bringing new and important sources of liquidity to the market, and we’re thrilled to be working with them in all aspects of trading on our platform. Matched with our unparalleled global network and innovative Open Trading solutions, Flow Traders brings meaningful pricing capabilities to our global network of institutional investors and dealers.” 

Over $2 trillion of global credit was traded over the MarketAxess platform among over 1,800 active investor and dealer participants in the first three quarters of 2021.  Of that, 32% was traded via Open Trading in the same period.  The enhanced global liquidity offered through Open Trading drove estimated transaction cost savings of $445 million for both liquidity takers and liquidity providers in the first three quarters of 2021.