MarketAxess Holdings, the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, announced the first client Casada trade executed via Request-for-Quote (RFQ) protocol on their Emerging Markets (EM) platform, with Safra as the buyside client. MarketAxess now provides trading in the complete spectrum of Brazilian sovereign debt instruments – including LFTs, LTNs, NTN-Fs and NTN-Bs.

This new comprehensive trading coverage comes as the Brazilian secondary debt market trading volume soared to $20 billion in trading ADV and more than $4 trillion in the aggregate in 2023, according to the Brazilian National Treasury. As the dominant protocol for fixed income electronic trading globally, the introduction of trading Casada via RFQ by MarketAxess supports greater liquidity discovery for local and international investors trading Brazilian debt strategies. A private RFQ auction allows investors to find transparency and liquidity on demand.

“We are extremely proud that we were able to support the first-ever Casada trade via RFQ,” said Maria Calderon, Head of Latin America Sales at MarketAxess. “This marks a pivotal moment for our Emerging Markets platform and the entire firm as Brazil represents one of the largest markets by value of bonds outstanding within Latin America. We will continue to innovate our robust EM platform with advances that we believe will benefit both onshore LATAM investors and global investors.”

The MarketAxess EM platform has more than 1,600 market participants in over 120 countries, with a worldwide liquidity pool and 28 local currency bond markets. In Q4 2023, MarketAxess launched Open Trading for local currency bonds to connect local onshore dealers with a network of international buyside clients, which significantly deepens the available liquidity pool. MarketAxess continues to invest heavily in emerging markets like Brazil, as this new diverse product range demonstrates the commitment to local clients and dealers who have previously expressed the need for RFQ protocols.

Source: MarketAxess