Tradeweb Reports Record Volumes on Post-Election Volatility

Fixed income trading platform on Thursday reported solid figures for trading volumes in November 2020 as market volatility driven by Covid-19 developments bolstered activity during the normally sluggish year-end months.
Average daily volume across all asset classes was $958.7 billion, a 37.2 percent increase from the same month a year ago. Further, this figure was higher by five percent month-over- month from $910.8 billion per day in October. November 2020 marks Tradeweb’s second-highest month ever.
In terms of total trading volume, however, the provider in November 2020 failed to top its previous reading for monthly volumes, coming in at $18.7 trillion, largely due to lesser trading days than October.
Trading volumes of US and European government bonds rose on a yearly basis to $100.1 billion and $27.0 respectively. Daily trading activity in U.S Treasuries exceeded $100 billion mark for the first time as the U.S. election and rising volatility also contributed to robust secondary trading.
Markets soar on election uncertainty
The gains at Tradeweb, majority owned by , were also partly driven by its interest rates business, which was up 25.6 percent year over year to $224.5 billion. Trading in swaps reached its highest levels since March 2020, with more than half the duration traded on SEF done via Tradeweb Markets. Trading on risk-free rates and trading via request-for-market (RFM) list also continued to see solid growth.
Moreover, trading activity in U.S Treasuries continued apace, with increased activity executed via firm streams by institutional and wholesale clients.
are typically quieter in late November as market participants go on holiday. But this year volatility metrics recorded their biggest leaps in decades on continuing uncertainty over which candidate will win the US presidential race.
Commenting on November trading volumes, Tradeweb CEO, Lee Olesky said: “In November, Tradeweb experienced strong double-digit growth in ADV across rates, credit, money markets and ETFs. This furthered the broad-based growth we reported last month and continued to reflect both higher underlying volumes and increased adoption of our platforms and solutions. Our share in U.S. credit trading has climbed steadily throughout 2020, and in November our monthly U.S. High Grade TRACE share topped 20% for the first time—nearly double where we were just two years ago.”