The world's largest asset manager BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) and trading platform Tradeweb Markets Inc (TW.O) are partnering to enhance electronic bond trading, the companies said on Tuesday.
Users of BlackRock's Aladdin system -- widely utilized across the financial industry to manage investment portfolios and risk -- will gain greater access to Tradeweb's credit platform and data through the partnership.
The move will allow investors to tap wider liquidity in markets for corporate, municipal, and emerging market bonds, the companies said.
"To be able to improve your liquidity and capacity to trade in very volatile environments as well is definitely a key benefit of further deepening these integrations," Chris Bruner, chief product officer at Tradeweb, told Reuters.
The partnership will also give users access to all-to-all trading that allows buyers and sellers to deal directly with each other rather than relying on market makers such as banks. Tradeweb launched all-to-all corporate bond trading in 2017.
Investors in U.S. credit markets have had to navigate choppy markets this year. The value of corporate debt has sunk as interest rates rose, recession concerns deepened and bond-market liquidity worsened.
The Federal Reserve of New York this year started publishing monthly updates on liquidity for U.S. corporate bonds to help identify signs of market distress similar to those seen during the global financial crisis and in early 2020. It said last month that market functioning continued to appear healthy, although "strained" in the investment-grade part of the market.
"Credit markets have grown increasingly electronic in recent years, but significant opportunities still exist to accelerate this trend through expanding pools of liquidity," Kamya Somasundaram, managing director, and general manager within the Aladdin Business at BlackRock, said in a statement.
