MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (MKTX), the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for fixed income securities and provider of market data and post-trade services for the global fixed-income markets, and BlackRock (BLK) today announced the launch of iShares fixed income exchange traded fund (ETF) information and basket trading technology on MarketAxess.
The consolidated iShares content on the MarketAxess trading system now enables ETF market makers to efficiently trade baskets of iShares ETF constituent bonds using MarketAxess' patented list trading functionality. Bid and Offer Wanted lists can also be sent via Market Lists, MarketAxess' flagship Open Trading protocol, to access the broadest all-to-all liquidity pool of over 1,000 institutional investor and broker-dealer firms.
"Traditional institutional investors are increasingly adopting ETFs for a variety of portfolio management strategies. Traders now have an efficient way to manage their iShares holdings. By streamlining the creation of bid/offer wanted lists of ETF constituent bonds within MarketAxess, traders can efficiently source pricing from multiple counterparties. ETF market makers can also view ETF trading activity for greater insight into actively traded bonds, thereby improving pre-trade price information," says Richard Schiffman, Open Trading Product Manager at MarketAxess.
"We're pleased to announce this partnership with MarketAxess so that authorized participants and ETF market makers can efficiently trade baskets of iShares ETF constituent bonds. This will ultimately help institutional investors add fixed income ETFs to their investment portfolios," commented Patrick Dunne, Head of iShares Global Markets & Investments at BlackRock.
iShares ETF Page Features:
View end of day iShares ETF fund holdings and related information across corporate bond ETFs and other fixed income funds, such as Treasuries, municipal, mortgages, etc.
Electronically trade bonds on MarketAxess from iShares' investment grade, high yield and select emerging market exchange traded funds
Send inquiries via Market Lists to MarketAxess' all-to-all liquidity pool, maximizing trade opportunities
List trading for constituent bonds with flexibility to trade all or part of the basket, improving efficiency for the create/redeem process
Trade sizes for each conr each constituent dynamically change when the basket unit count is adjusted
BlackRock and MarketAxess have executed a Letter of Intent and commencement of operations is subject to finalization of a definitive agreement, which the parties expect to complete within the next several weeks.