Institutions in Asia are executing a steadily increasing proportion of business on a low-touch basis (algorithms, DMA, crossing, portfolio trades) as opposed to traditional high-touch business executed through a broker sales trader. These same...

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...

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...

Another year down. We're a year further from the Lehman bankruptcy, a year further from the signing of Dodd-Frank and a year closer to the full implementation of Basel III. But before we start looking ahead, let's look back at the year in market...

I’m not a great fan of regulation for regulation’s sake. While this is too strong and cursory a judgment on what has been happening in the US and Europe for the past few years, some suggested regulatory changes make you wonder. For instance,...

According to Liquidnet CEO Seth Merrin the corporate bond market is “a disaster waiting to happen”. A disaster? Maybe. But certainly it is a market waiting for better ways to match buyers and sellers. That is exactly what Liquidnet was thinking...

Over the past decade or so, the growth of OMS and EMS platforms has paralleled the growth of electronic trading – but it would be a stretch to suggest a direct cause-and-effect relationship. These days, though, given the growing importance of...

If you work in institutional finance you’ve heard talk of market structure. Not only are there entire conferences dedicated to the topic, but most of the participants at those conferences— banks, asset managers, researchers—send their heads of...

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, cliff signdropping 64% (revised down slightly as new data...

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...