Trad-X, the market-leading platform for the trading of global interest rates swaps from Compagnie Financière Tradition SA, has announced record trading volumes for US dollar interest rate swaps for June. Trading volumes in USD interest rate swaps hit a record notional high of USD 50 billion, while the number of trades executed topped 750 trades. These electronically executed trades accounted for a third (33%) of all USD trades at Tradition.
Further Reading:Â CFTC gives another year of leeway for reporting swap data to all firms
Dan Marcus, CEO of Trad-X, comments: “Central Limit Order Book electronic execution of IRS was non-existent just 18 months ago and has had to start from zero. For it to account for a third of all trades at Tradition in such a short period of time is significant.”
Trad-X liquidity is provided across 268 price points by at least 12 of the largest banks in the world every trading day. The symbiosis between and successful integration of the voice and electronic liquidity pool in the new world of SEF trading is the real reason for the growth in Tradition’s overall volumes.
Mike Leibowitz, Chief Operating Officer at Tradition, added: “Interest rate swaps are the most heavily traded derivatives on SEFs and are the most effective risk transfer products in the interest rate space. At Tradition we took the view that our reference pages for EUR and USD should be based on the purely electronic prices generated by the Trad-X Central Limit Order Book rather than any indicative pricing provided by voice. This creates an irrefutable price reference source that can be relied upon by the wider market.”
“…There is clearly a demand for change and we believe that if the whole market moves to our model, the trading environment would change beyond recognition for the better.”