Trends in Fixed Income Trading 2020

This report examines these changes by exploring the approaches to trade lifecycle management that are now commonly and uncommonly utilised by sellside broker-dealer institutions, non-bank brokerage venue operators, electronic brokerage venue operators and exchange platform operators to cater to the liquidity access needs of buyside firms and non-bank price / market-makers.

These changes are primarily driven by the proliferation of new, fixed income-specific order management and execution management technology, and by new bank and non-bank brokerage venue and exchange platform offerings and matching methodologies, which GreySpark believes – in 2020 – are increasingly leading to a democratisation of access to bonds and swaps liquidity data on a pre-trade and post-trade basis in manners not previously witnessed.

These developments – and the opportunities they create for both buyside firms and sellside investment banks to productively collaborate on price-making and order execution – will continue to accelerate an on-going transition away from voice and dealer-to-client market structure and toward a flatter, more multi-polar landscape.

By expanding the scope of this research in 2020, this report paints a more global picture of the fixed income market’s structural evolution, and it draws on comparisons between developed markets bonds and swaps trading technologies and their emerging markets counterparts.