Fixed-income trading platform, Tradeweb Markets reported weaker trading volumes in August 2021 as investors became less active after frantic trading driven by Covid-19 earlier in the year sent operational metrics to record highs.
The average daily volume across all asset classes was $900.4 billion, a 20.6 percent increase over the same month a year ago. However, this figure was lower by -7.4 percent month-over-month from $970 billion per day in July.
In terms of total trading volume, Tradeweb in August 2021 also failed to top its previous reading for monthly volumes, coming in at $19.8 trillion, down from $20.6 trillion in July.
Market volatility developments, which has been a standout phenomenon of the pandemic-era, bolstered activity in certain assets in June and July, even during the normally sluggish summer months. But a slowdown occurred as many counties eased some coronavirus restrictions which likely took some of investors’ interest.
Trading volumes of US and European government bonds rose on a yearly basis to $123 billion (up 41 percent) and $24 billion (up 1 percent) respectively.
The YoY gains at Tradeweb, which is majority-owned by Refinitiv, were also partly driven by its equities business. US ETF ADV was up 24.7 percent YoY to $3.6 billion and European ETF ADV was up 16.6 percent YoY to $1.6 billion.
Trading on risk-free rates and trading via request-for-market (RFM) list also continued to see solid growth across swaps/swaptions. Moreover, the trading activity in U.S Treasuries continued apace, with increased activity executed via firm streams by institutional and wholesale clients.
Trading desks are typically quieter in the summer months as market participants go on holiday. But this year’s volatility metrics recorded their biggest leaps in decades earlier in the season on continuing uncertainty over the global central banks’ policy.
Commenting on August trading volumes, Tradeweb CEO, Lee Olesky said: “While markets were relatively quiet in August, Tradeweb continued its trend of year-over-year growth in monthly ADV with a diverse portfolio of products. One area of strategic focus for Tradeweb has been credit, and we were pleased to see steady growth in our market share over the course of the summer.”
