Institutional electronic marketplace BondBook, is claiming to have traded over $10 billion worth of bonds in its first five months of operation.
BondBook says it reached the $10 billion mark after a strong July, which saw trading volume for the first time reach more than $1 billion in a single week. The company also recorded its single largest trading day during the month, with $300 million in corporate bonds changing hands in the session.
The trading system is currently averaging more than 330 live markets daily with average trade size of $4.5 million for investment grade bonds and $1 million for high yield bonds.
BondBook expects volume to increase further as market making and trading by its three newest sponsors, CSFB, Lehman Brothers and UBS Warburg, which joined in May, begin to ramp up over the next several weeks.
BondBook will soon release an upgraded version of its trading platform, with expanded order management capabilities, trading alerts and APIs allowing direct links to dealers' automated pricing engines.