The Fixed Income Trading Revolution
We just published Innovations in Fixed Income Technology: The Platforms and the Pieces which explores the changing fixed income trading technology landscape at pre-trade and execution. The overarching theme of the report is the morphing of traditional fixed income engagement as it rapidly adds more electronic tools to the front office. And, the timing is perfect because I am packing my bags to head to Philadelphia, PA to speak at the Fixed Income Leaders Summit.
At the conference, I will be on a panel discussing the key objectives that buy side technology consumers should consider as they evaluate data/analytics, trading venues/platforms, and trading technology/automation tools.
We explore these topics in the report by looking at how four major themes are driving technology investment across key fixed income market participants-Business Model, Market Structure, Data-Driven Insights, and Trade Workflows/Process Automation:
Business Model:
- Capital optimization around managing principal and agency models in trading of flow rates and credit products
- Increased regulatory and compliance driving increased transparency in pricing and trading
- Cultural and business changes around automating sales and trading as well as client engagement models
Market Structure:
- Fragmentation of liquidity across disparate types of venue and liquidity providers
- Demands for new tools for aggregation of diverse liquidity, prices, and products
Data-Driven Insights:
- Analyses of electronic trading drives higher volumes of quotes/trades
- Demand for data access, leverage and insight in pricing, trading, and TCA
- Demand for advanced decision support tools: automation, machine learning, and AI
Trade Workflows/Process Automation:
- Digital transformation to avoid redundant processes and front-to-back efficiencies
- Competitive advantage to unifying data and workflows
- Diminish integration complexities across trading, risk, and counterparties
At the Fixed Income Leaders Summit eTrading Evaluation Day, my panel will be ensuring that the buy side asks the right questions of fixed income data and analytic tools like IHS Markit, Algomi, and CBXmarket; platforms/venues like Fenics US Treasuries, Jump trading; and trading technology EMS/Automation providers like smartTrade, AxeTrading, and Charles River, a State Street Company.