In its first two weeks of active trading, OpenDoor Trading has shown that an all-to-all trading model is viable in the off-the-run US Treasuries market.
In the 18 auctions that the electronic trading venue has had since its launch, OpenDoor Trading's platform received 362 orders, according to Guy Haselmann, managing director at OpenDoor Trading.
Those orders totaled $20.6 billion, ranged from $5 million in TIPS to $385 million in nominals, and had an average order size of $57 million.
Unlike previous platforms that tried to implement all-to-all trading models, OpenDoor Trading, which won the 2017 Market Choice Award for Best FinTech Company, decided to construct a non-displayed dealer-sponsored model.
Guy Haselmann,
OpenDoor Trading
"Our all-to-all platform lets everybody trade with everybody on a level playing field. Simultaneously, primary dealers are not 'disintermediated', since accounts will choose a sponsor-dealer for their settlement and clearing,” said Haselmann.
By including primary dealers in its model, OpenDoor has not turned away the potential of central banks participating on the platform from providing further liquidity.
“Many of the central banks are mandated by law to go through primary dealers for settlement and clearing,” said Haselmann. “Since central banks own over 40% of the entire Treasury market, it made perfect sense to structure the platform in this manner and share transaction fee revenues with the dealers."
OpenDoor Trading uses multiple point-in-time anonymous trading sessions, or auctions, during each trading day.
Each auction consists of three phases. During the first phase, the OpenDoor Trading platform displays the mid-point prices, locks the benchmark, and displays the offer on a yield spread to the benchmark. The next phase, which can last for several minutes, lets users review the displayed prices and upload their orders. In the final phase, users enter their orders, which can be above, below, or at the midpoint price. However, for those who trade away from the mid-point price, they have to trade $10 million to validate the midpoint price.
“Most prices on our platform will be filled at mid-market prices due to its design, so bid-ask spreads are mostly eliminated,” said Haselmann. “Due to the ability to execute at mid-market prices or better and without anyone seeing your orders, our platform offers a free option for traders and fiduciaries to try our platform as a way to seek best execution practices.”
Since its launch, OpenDoor Trading has 30 end-user accounts with approximately more than $5 trillion in aggregated assets under management.
Haselmann expects the client base to expand to 40 end users in the next two to six weeks bringing an addition $10 trillion of aggregate AUM to the platform. "Several firms were waiting for the platform to launch due to internal rules prohibiting them from being on new platforms at launch," he said.
