Intercontinental Exchange, a leading operator of global exchanges and clearing houses and provider of mortgage technology, data and listings services, today announced record volumes for fixed income portfolio trading during the fourth quarter of 2020.

Over $1.9 billion in U.S.-based notional activity was executed in the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of more than two times the volume of the previous quarter and the strongest period of activity since ICE first introduced portfolio trading. ICE re-launched its portfolio auction protocol in 2020, making it accessible through ICE FI Select, and has gained steady momentum since then. ICE FI Select offers direct access to the full suite of ICE Bonds execution venues and trading protocols alongside ICE’s Continuous Evaluated Prices and fixed income analytics.

New ICE Bonds portfolio trading record:

• Over $1.9B in notional activity executed in fourth quarter of 2020
• More than 2.5x the volume of the previous quarter
• Strongest period of activity since ICE first introduced portfolio trading

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— ICE (@ICE_Markets) January 5, 2021

Portfolio trading now makes up nearly 5% of total bond market trading volumes, nearly three times the amount in previous years, according to recent estimates of TRACE (Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine) data. ICE Bonds gives customers a range of options for executing trading strategies across investment grade, high-yield and emerging markets, ranging from Central Order Book access to more efficient workflows for request-for-quote orders and executing baskets of bonds.

“ICE Bonds was established to bring greater efficiency and improved trading protocols to the fixed income markets,” said Peter Borstelmann, President of ICE Bonds and Head of ICE ETF Hub. “With portfolio trading becoming an increasingly important part of our customers’ trading strategies, we’re pleased to see such strong interest from the institutional investment community for our portfolio auction protocol.”

ICE Bonds’ Portfolio Auction allows institutional investors to trade a portfolio of bonds on an all-or-nothing basis to one or multiple platform participants in a discrete, pre-determined period of time. Portfolio Auction offers two distinct trading session formats, At-the-Market or At-the-Close, giving investment managers the ability to leverage either ICE Data Services’ Continuous Evaluated Pricing (CEP) for intra-day trades or End-of-Day Evaluations.

Source: ICE