Tradeweb and FTSE Russell are partnering to develop fixed income index pricing and trading products.
The partnership aims to facilitate pricing across a broader range of fixed income securities, which FTSE Russell will administer as benchmarks.
This expands the firms’ existing partnership on benchmark pricing for UK gilts and European government bonds.
Closing prices will amalgamate trading activity from Tradeweb’s electronic platform to better align with actual trading levels and intraday pricing. These prices can be used for functions including trade-at-close transactions and derivatives contracts.
Over time, FTSE Russell will “explore” incorporating Tradeweb pricing into its fixed income indices, starting with the FTSE World Government Bond index.
Tradeweb will add to the trading functionality of FTSE Russell’s benchmarks through its request-for-quote (RFQ), automated intelligent execution tool (AiEX) and portfolio trading services.
Lisa Schirf, global head of data and analytics at Tradeweb, said: “Tradeweb’s collaboration with FTSE Russell will provide clients with verified benchmarks they can use as reliable closing prices for their end-of-day trading strategies and other purposes.
“The Tradeweb-FTSE closing prices will create a foundation across global fixed income markets for consistent end-of-day and intraday prices and is another way we are investing in the electronification of the markets.”
Scott Harman, head of fixed income indices at FTSE Russell, added: “With our comprehensive suite of sophisticated fixed income indices and a growing need for innovative pricing solutions from our clients, our deeper collaboration with Tradeweb will enable us to bring to market greater tractability and tradability of our indices.”
The partnership adds to an active few months for Tradeweb. In August, ETF Stream revealed the firm introduced notional-based trading for global ETFs via its RFQ platform, enabling investors to submit ETF orders via the platform based on a defined cash value.
