Tradeweb Announces Integration with Investortools to Drive
Electronic Trading in Municipal Bonds
NEW YORK and LONDON – October 24, 2019 – Tradeweb Markets Inc. (Nasdaq: TW), a leading global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities and money markets, today announced the integration of Tradeweb Direct with Perform® by Investortools, Inc. to better support trading between institutions and retail investors.
Tradeweb Direct provides brokers, wealth managers and institutions with fast, reliable trading and portfolio analytics in municipal bonds, U.S. corporate bonds and Certificates of Deposits. Investortools specializes in portfolio management and credit analysis systems for institutional investors. The integration will result in straight through processing of all municipal bond order flow executed by Tradeweb Direct participants.
“The integration of Tradeweb Direct with Investortools is a significant part of our broader strategy to build and grow a modern market for municipal bonds that connects clients of every size with the technology and tools they need to transact efficiently,” said John Cahalane, Head of Tradeweb Direct. “There is widespread investor interest in tax-free instruments, and we are focused on serving that demand with resilient and deep liquidity, and a robust platform that gives our clients the flexibility and scale they deserve.”
A growing portion of the $6.8 trillion invested in separately managed accounts (SMAs) is being directed toward the municipal bond market as retail investors and their advisors prioritize tax efficient assets. In turn, larger institutions want to interact with this order flow, and so efficient electronic access and tools to help streamline workflows are increasingly important as participants navigate the converging liquidity.
Since the start of the year, Tradeweb has expanded FIX connectivity for clients seeking access to aggregated dealer inventory, and expanded automated trading options to give clients more optionality and flexibility, facilitating more than $47 billion in municipal bond trading. In an average day on Tradeweb more than 190 dealers and over 280 clients, including around 50 of the largest institutional investors, exchange 20% of all municipal bond trades reported to the MSRB.
“We are delighted to collaborate with Tradeweb Direct to offer our clients the benefits of seamless electronic trading within our Perform software.” Said Jon Anderson, Chief Product Officer at Investortools. “Investortools is focused on building out a platform that allows our clients to keep adding AUM without adding headcount.”
Across fixed income markets, expanded access to liquidity – especially streaming liquidity in historically retail markets – has become increasingly relevant to institutional traders across products. To cater to this demand, Tradeweb has been working to integrate once-highly discrete liquidity pools. Beyond the firm’s work in the municipal bond market, institutions can now interact with more than $10bn of streaming liquidity in corporate bonds.
