In the midst of the global financial crisis, Canada's largest and most active institutional fixed-income traders led a long-awaited move into electronic trading, according to research from Greenwich Associates.
Faced with gaps in sell-side coverage and a sudden and dramatic widening of spreads, Canada's institutions turned to electronic trading platforms as a new and alternative source of liquidity, says Greenwich, which interviewed over 115 institutional fixed income investors in the country.
In 2008, only 36% of institutions generating more than $10 billion in annual fixed-income trading volume used electronic trading platforms for this business. In 2009 that proportion surged to 61%, driving the overall share of Canadian institutions trading electronically to 43% from 40%.
Three firms dominate the Canadian fixed-income market: BMO Capital Markets, TD Securities and RBC Capital Markets, with each holding a market share of around 16%.
Greeenwich says TD and RBC in particular have seen a significant increase in electronic trading volume over the last year with investors using the CanDeal electronic platform they set up with over investment banks in 2001.