Tag: fixed income

Talking US Treasury Market Structure with FIA

Its been way too long since I’ve posted. Funny how writing for a living makes it hard to write your own blog. Something like “the cobbler’s kids have no shoes”. Anyway, we had a great trip to Chicago earlier this month for the annual FIA Expo. We were told that over 6000 people attended, which […]

Are Fixed Income ETFs Derivatives? My conversation with Bloomberg TV.

Some new research from Greenwich Associates found that institutional use of Fixed Income ETFs is growing. Not surprisingly really, but digging more deeply into why and what it means for the market has a whole creates some interesting debates – debates that I tackle with the folks at Bloomberg TV.

Is a crisis a crisis if everyone knows its coming?

(also published on the Greenwich Associates blog) 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 that this crisis is […]

15 for 15: Top Market Structure Trends to Watch in 2015

Market structure happenings have been fast and furious since 2009, and 2014 did not disappoint.  Mandatory SEF trading finally began, fixed income electronic trading continued its steady incline, the current shape of the US equity market was once again brought to the forefront and the cost of capital continued its assault on the banking industry. […]

US Treasuries are trading electronically, but we still need bond traders

I recently spoke with Bloomberg TV about a recent Greenwich Associates research report that examined the growth in electronic trading of US Treasuries by US investors. The US Treasury market is an obvious one for electronification – the products are standard, liquid and the number of market participants is large. But relationships still matter, and […]

North American Fixed Income Update: E-Trading and Too Big To Fail

This week we will begin to release the results of our annually North American Fixed Income study, based on just shy of 1100 investors trading fixed income products, looking across 18 different product types.  I will be presenting an overview of our initial findings on August 7 (Thursday) at 11a ET, and discuss where we will be digging […]

The US Invasion of European Fixed Income

Capital is expensive and getting more expensive.  But the problem is proving a much harder one to manage in Europe, with European banks continuing to deleverage and already complying with the principles of Basel III while US banks have their capital houses (relatively) in order.  The impact of this dichotomy is broad, but one impact […]

SEF volumes died last week – so when and where will they return?

Turned out the first week of mandatory SEF trading was a Big Bang, just in the wrong direction.  Reported SEF volumes for interest rate swaps fell off a cliff for the week of February 17th, dropping 64% (revised down slightly as new data became available) from the 2014 weekly average SEF traded volume (thanks as […]

Electronic trading of bonds is growing – sort of…

We all know that the massive reduction in dealer inventories and the cost of capital has had a huge negative impact on liquidity in the corporate bond market.  While the primary market has helped soften the blow, that crutch isn’t going to be here for long as rates start to rise over the next few […]

Fixed Income Desks Spending More on Technology. Surprised? Me neither.

We spoke to just under 500 portfolio managers and traders globally to see what they’re doing with and what they think about OMSs, EMSs and TCA platforms for Equities, FX and Fixed Income.  This is not a space of dramatic year on year change given the maturity of the providers and their products.  However the […]