Wall Street’s Tech-Powered Bond Trades Hit Record $1 Trillion

A tech-powered approach to bond trading that helps firms move hundreds of securities in one go has just posted its best year yet.

Portfolio trades, in which large baskets of debt are bought and sold in one swoop, accounted for about 9% of total US corporate bond volume in 2024, according to data from Tradeweb Markets Inc. That’s a record level of activity, which propelled the value of all transactions using the method past $1 trillion for the first time.

Portfolio trading has boomed in recent years thanks to a combination of the rapid growth of credit ETFs — which help facilitate the trades — and the increased electronification of the debt markets. That has pushed down trading costs and given rise to much larger bond deals, with transactions of more than $500 million accounting for an increasing share of activity.

The trajectory “reflects increased adoption from new firms and expanded usage by existing clients,” Tradeweb US credit managing director Ted Husveth wrote in a Thursday report.

PORTFOLIO TRADING