We have invested heavily in the ability to source, store and digest the data. We built a data management system that allows us to systematically digest or aggregate data from pre-trade, at-trade and post-trade data and then display it to the trader to aid with their decision-making process.

A fight is brewing between financial industry heavyweights with Citadel urging regulators to scrap a proposed review of whether the disclosure of big bond trades should be delayed, pitting billionaire Ken Griffin’s firm against investment giants including Pacific Investment Management Co.

The growth of fixed-income ETFs is making it easier to determine bond prices and smoother to carry out large trades, said Sonali Theisen, head of fixed-income market structure at Bank of America. 

New issuers in B3 debt comprised 44% of all new paper that came to market in 2018, double the level in 2007, just before the last recession, which saw massive debt defaults when the subprime mortgage market collapsed.

From a trader’s perspective this ought to mean new services can appear on their desktops without any fuss or bother, where connecting them once might have been slower and more difficult. It also offers another possibility. By employing the connectivity between different systems as operational ‘hops’, trading desks 

Some of the biggest banks that serve as corporate bond dealers, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley, are actively working with their clients to help facilitate direct electronic trading.

Fixed-income hedge funds had $556 billion in assets under management, about six percent of the $9.2 trillion corporate bond market. “Given their relatively small size, it is simply impossible for hedge funds to ‘become the market’ and absorb large liquidity shocks,” according to the report.

Extracting the benefits of transparency while eliminating its detrimental effects requires techniques that are normally reserved for electronic trading platforms. To get the best out of transparency, we need protocols. Applied properly, the right transparency protocols will increase access to information while protecting the proprietary data that can destabilize a market.

Finra last week proposed running a pilot program that would give traders 48 hours before having to reveal their so-called block trades to other investors. The effort would allow the industry-funded brokerage regulator, which is overseen by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, to evaluate how delayed transparency might affect corporate bond trading.

Consider Germany’s Bayer AG, which agreed to buy Monsanto in May 2016 for $66bn in what was then the largest all-cash merger ever announced. The deal was controversial from the start as Bayer was going to need to raise billions. Traditionally, this means going on a roadshow and explaining its plan in great detail. Without evidence of a credible plan, capitalists will not part with their money.

Not the ECB.