MarketAxess Holdings and BlackRock have launched 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 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,” says Patrick Dunne, head of iShares global markets & investments at BlackRock.
BlackRock and MarketAxess have executed a letter of intent and commencement of operations is subject to finalisation of a definitive agreement, which the parties expect to complete within the next several weeks.
