Source: TradeWeb
Thomson TradeWeb, the leading online marketplace for Fixed Income and Derivatives, and a unit of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC), today announced that it has launched a multi-dealer-to-customer online market for the trading of specified pools of mortgages. Working closely with the major mortgage dealers and a core group of leading buy-side institutions, TradeWeb has built a unique marketplace that provides mortgage professionals with the capability to research pool criteria, search multiple dealer inventory, execute and seamlessly process trades in real-time on a single platform. TradeWeb's new specified pools platform also allows clients to send targeted inquiry to individual dealers ('reverse axes").
Specified pools are baskets of individual mortgages, which have been securitized into unique mortgage-backed securities. The individual characteristics of these pools allow investors to better match their investments with their trading strategies.
"With record trading levels in 2007, TradeWeb clearly stands out as the No. 1 online mortgage marketplace. With the support of our dealers and clients, we look forward to gaining as significant traction in specified pools as we have in TBAs," said Billy Hult, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Markets at Thomson TradeWeb.
TradeWeb launched its To-Be-Announced ("TBA") mortgage-backed securities market in February 2001. It now has average daily trading volume in excess of $70 billion.
"TradeWeb is injecting much-needed liquidity to the Specified Pools market, which we are fully supportive of," said Tim Cunneen, Principal at Smith Breeden Associates.
"Specified pools is a natural extension of TradeWeb's well-entrenched mortgage business. We're already seeing evidence that this will become an important distribution channel for UBS," said Mike Marsallo, Head MBS Trader at UBS.
TradeWeb launches its specified pools marketplace with the strong support of 15 mortgage dealers, which are committed to providing liquidity to their clients.