S&P Dow Jones Indices has entered into an agreement with MarketAxess, an electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities and a provider of market data and post-trade services for the global fixed-income markets, to jointly develop indices that will track the most liquid segments of the U.S. corporate bond market.
Alex Matturri, Chief Executive Officer of S&P Dow Jones Indices, said:
Investor demand for U.S. corporate bonds continues to show strength, and due to this growth, liquidity has emerged as a top-of-mind interest. As American companies continue issuing debt in a low interest-rate environment, it is becoming increasingly important for investors to have access to robust information on the U.S. corporate bond market that offers sophisticated insights into its behavior. We are pleased to collaborate with MarketAxess, and we look forward to providing a new level of transparency to this segment of the fixed-income marketplace.”
By leveraging the MarketAxess liquidity data sets with S&P DJI’s world class indexing capabilities, the initial focus of this collaboration is centered on creating sub-indices of the S&P 500® Bond Index that enable the marketplace to identify and track the most liquid bonds in each quality range and sector. The first indices are anticipated to be launched in the first quarter of 2017.
Nick Themelis, Chief Information Officer of MarketAxess, shared:
Few factors are more critical than liquidity in sizing up opportunities and managing risk in today’s corporate bond markets. With over $1.2 trillion of corporate bonds trading on our global platform in the past twelve months, MarketAxess has a unique edge in providing investors with actionable insights into this critical dimension of the credit markets. We believe investors will find significant strategic value in indices that incorporate a dynamic view of liquidity conditions.”