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Following the Independent Reference Prices Review and the UK Debt Management Office announcement October 2016, we're pleased to share more details on the transition process to the “Tradeweb FTSE Gilt Closing Prices” service.

After founding Tradeweb as Chairman back in 1998, Olesky’s leadership and focus on consistency and innovation has helped establish Tradeweb as a premier electronic marketplace for fixed income, derivatives and ETFs.

Global trading activity continues to outpace 2017, with July trading volumes on Tradeweb Markets reaching $518bn ADV, a 41% increase from July 2017. Volumes are down a bit from June’s record of $590bn ADV, as the summer trading begins to take hold.

Electronic swaps trading is reaching higher levels of sophistication and maturity, with buy-side firms leveraging automation to achieve greater operational efficiencies and support new trading strategies.

The bond market seesaw continues. Following April’s increases, yields for 10-year government bonds fell in May amid trade tensions, economic and monetary uncertainty, and political drama, with most sinking by double digits.

Yields on 10-year government debt continued to decline in August. All of the 18 sovereign markets Tradeweb tracks in its monthly Government Bond Update saw yields fall by more than 10 basis points, with some even hitting record low levels in the process.

Mid-yields on 10-year government bonds finished 2019 – and capped off the decade – with across-the-board increases. In fact, amid an ever-uncertain monetary policy environment, several government bond markets tracked by Tradeweb saw their yields rise by double-digits over the course of December. In some cases, this helped push yields either closer or into positive territory.

Tradeweb was the first trading platform to offer portfolio trading for corporate bonds, launching in early 2019. The platform facilitated a total $43 billion of portfolio trades in 2019, with single trades as large as $1bn in notional value.

Government bond market volatility subsided in May compared to the previous two months, despite a barrage of weak economic data published around the world. In the euro area, the majority of 10-year government bond mid-yields rose slightly during the month, with those for Germany registering the biggest increase of 13.5 basis points to close May at -0.45%. The country’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) estimated that the annual inflation rate would fall to 0.6% in May, its lowest level since September 2016.

Since their inception in the early 2000s, fixed income exchange traded funds (ETFs) have always sparked debate among financial markets professionals. Advocates point to the ability to gain instant exposure to a broad range of securities with lower transaction costs and, in some cases, better overall liquidity than the underlying bonds themselves. Detractors warn that the potential for a liquidity mismatch between the ETF and its underlying products could create a recipe for trouble during periods of heightened volatility.