MarketAxess Holdings Inc. ($MKTX)

All right, everyone. Next up, we're joined by Chris Concannon, who's the CEO of MarketAxess, a leading electronic platform for fixed income has led the company since 2023 after serving as President and COO of CBOE Global Markets. Chris, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

All right. So you reported May metrics this morning. So before we get into the credit market share conversation, I do want to highlight what stood out to me, which has been the continued strength internationally, particularly in emerging markets. It's been a consistent bright spot for you. So could you touch on what you saw in May, how you're thinking about the international EM opportunity and what you're looking at as kind of the most attractive opportunities in those areas.

Sure. And again, it's great to be here. And yes, our international business is really a great bright spot for us. It continues to grow. The key ingredient we have been invested in that market for many years. So it does take a sizable investment in terms of distribution, registrations around the globe. We all live in regulated worlds. What's interesting about the emerging market business is when you size it, it is equivalent in size to U.S. credit. So a lot of us spend a lot of time focused on like IG, which is 1 portion of U.S. credit. But the EM business is similar in size the electronic penetration of VM is quite low. It's hard to estimate because no 1 really knows the total turnover of emerging markets given local markets don't report. But we're somewhere around 10% of e-trading in emerging markets. So sizable TAM opportunity in EM and when I look at the broader market of EM, it is growing, so you're seeing new issue in EM both at the country level, but also at the credit level, the corporate level. We've just added India. We're the only platform now that is live in India, operating and trading in India which is exciting. So we've added to the breadth of the product. In India, let's be clear. India is going to be a sizable debt market for years to come. It already is 1 of the largest. So again, in terms of that TAM opportunity, it's huge. When I look at the AM business from a competitive standpoint, we only really see 1 competitor largely Bloomberg. And typically, that's more chat related than E related, but a very strong competitor in terms of distribution around the globe the EM business, just if you look at the May report, again, it grew 18% year-over-year. This is after a record first quarter of EM, where it grew close to 30%, which is exciting. When I evaluate the e-business in EM, we've really hit on every cylinder. If you look at some of the challenges that we've had in IG, portfolio trading dealer-to-dealer in emerging markets, we have everything fully deployed. We have -- we're the largest platform for portfolio trading in EM. We've delivered a new platform for that portfolio trading solution, we are, by far, the largest RFQ platform with that all-to-all embedded. That liquidity is unique in EM. Sometimes our EM liquidity is 50% of our overall market. That means somewhere there is a nonbank or a bank that is facing a client that isn't set up to face. So we deliver that unique liquidity our dealer-to-dealer business in May also grew after a record Q1 as well. So -- and the most exciting thing about EM is growth of blocks. So when you look at the fixed income market, and I'm talking U.S. credit, emerging markets, munis, what's most daunting when you think of all the AI that's replacing everybody's job here is we are facing competition from the phone. So there is more phone and chat-based market volume than there is electronic market volume on a global scale. So the market opportunity for electronic platforms is greater than what we've already conquered. And let's be clear, people are not going to be chatting and Bing trades of 10 million bonds in U.S. credit and in EM, that's where we're seeing growth of blocks. And so we're seeing that block market that's going from chat to a platform finally cracking. And so that -- what's exciting about that is that's really a forecast of what we see happening in the U.S. credit market as well.

Sure. All right. Well, that's a nice segue. Shifting over to the credit markets may seem like was decent for you from a market share perspective up 100 basis points in high grade, I think up 30 basis points in high yield. So improving their -- so can you just comment on the share drivers in May? And then maybe big picture, whether it's portfolio trading blocks all to all, we've seen the increased competition. How do you think about your positioning credit today and what gets this business back on a sustainable market share gain trajectory?

Yes. Great question. And obviously, U.S. credit is where we've invested heavily in that market. When I look at May, I'm excited about the share gains, but I'm more excited about what's coming out this summer from a delivery perspective. We've been hard at work for the last year on a number of different products and solutions that are rolling out. But first, let me talk about U.S. credit, in particular. One area that we've seen continuous growth is portfolio trading. And so some of the drivers of our share gains in May was delivered through portfolio trading, both investment-grade as well as high yield. High yield, we are 1 of the leading portfolio trading platforms in the U.S. We have -- we came from behind and took over that spot in investment grade, very similar growth rates. We grew our portfolio trading in the month of May. Areas where we're not going to enter into a price war is the dealer-to-dealer space. That's a space that is commoditized pricing. We've chosen not to engage in that pricing war. We're happy to sit where we are. Ultimately, our true value in this market is with the client to dealer business. Now we're fully invested in the Derodealer business. We have Mid-X, which is slowly growing month-over-month. We think that's the right investment for that space that's new revenue, new incremental revenue. Again, it comes in at a smaller fee per million because of the competitive dynamic in dealer-to-dealer but our investment is all around U.S. credit client business. From a competitive dynamic, and we'll share these numbers, we probably provide too much transparency from my perspective, but the fee has been quite stable in our client business. So when it comes to client to dealer business, a quite stable fee where movement of fee is really any movement in our mix of business. Portfolio trading grew in the month of May. We did exceptionally well in high yield and exceptionally well in that tends to come in at a lower fee per million. Another area of excitement for May, again, we continue to add blocks to our electronic platform. That is the predictor of the future of e-trading in U.S. credit. The more blocks -- remember, 50% of the investment-grade market is on phone and chat. That's truly absurd when you look at how we trade other asset classes. No other asset class including crypto and poly market, it's all , that's the final legacy of trading on chat is fixed income. And we're showing you proof that the block trade is moving to the e-platform. And then sorry, I know it's a long-winded short question. What's exciting to me is what's coming. So tomorrow is the launch of our new issue platform. Again, it's client by client. We're rolling out to 1 client. It's going to be in pilot for a portion of the summer. But we Market Access after a year of work with dealers and direct books, we announced the partnership we are now just a couple of months ago, we're launching the product tomorrow, goes live with a client, but we are now part of the new issue syndicate process. We are redistributing direct book services we don't engage in any part of the book building. We're just redistributing to our clients. This product has gotten more positive feedback than I've seen any other product at market access. It's an area of pain for our largest institutional investors. They have struggled with the manual processing around new issue for quite some time. we're able to deliver that through our platform. We have all the clients. We're now adding syndicate desks from our buy-side clients onto our platform. So it's just an exciting new area of growth for us is getting in the middle of that new issue process. If you look at some of the competitive dynamics -- we haven't historically done well in a new issue market, a vibrant new issue market May is another example. May was the third largest May new issue we've seen in history. So it was a pretty big new issue, $163 billion in new issue. This does a couple of things. One, it puts us into the new issue process. Two, we get the data of new issue faster. Today, we wait several hours for that upload of data for people to trade on a platform. Now with this partnership, we were getting the data at the break. So we'll have the new issue before it even prices and allows for all the different protocols on market access to be ready to trade that new issue at the time of break. What's exciting is in August, we're rolling out a new issue trading solution, where when you're doing your allocation process, you never get 100% of your allocation. So that trader wants to trade that new issue in the open market. We will have streaming price click to trade solution largely a block solution for new issue come August in front of that client on the same platform. So you'll see revenue associated with new issue trading really coming in the latter parts of the summer. But what's exciting is the rollout happens to client by client with this new issue, this ability to participate directly off of market access into the syndicate process is all new, and no 1 else has that.

How much penetration do you think you could see into the new issue market? Because I mean it does represent a whole -- another thing that investors now have to think about in the market share world. So like if you're -- I don't know what it was percent in high grade of the non-new issuance market, like where could that market share in new issues -- is it or a.

Yes. I mean, our biggest challenge in market share is in a big new issue month. So Q1, if you look at Q1, record quarter for us. but that was just driven by large secondary trading activity and volatility, but market share gains, new issue was robust in Q1. And our opportunity -- new issue, first 3 days of trading of a new issue is our lowest market share. It only goes up after those 3 to 5 days of trading. So there's a huge revenue opportunity for us to just trade the new issue more aggressively. What's great about this product is we'll have eyeballs trading new issue and there'll be live trading secondary trading. And we plan to offer gray market trading in the fourth quarter as well. So we'll have both gray and live trading of new issue at the break.

Sure. All right. So another thing you mentioned there was this idea of the price war as you put it. And your stocks come under pressure recently. Your biggest competitor stock has been under pressure. I talked to a lot of investors who -- they want to get interested. They like the names, but some of them feel like they can't get involved until this price war is over. And you're obviously a big driver of that narrative. So from your seat, when do you think this price war will be over? How much more stress do you think they will be on pricing? And what would you say to those investors who are kind of thinking that.

Well, one, there's no price war in our core business. So in the client-to-dealer business, we have maintained price -- we've maintained stability of price for some time. there's noise around the price war that really we don't feel at the client level, where prices -- we see prices being cut is in the dealer-to-dealer space. Now I'll give you a portfolio trading as a perfect example. Three years ago, there was probably price movement around portfolio trading. All the platforms that have viable portfolio trading solutions set price and haven't changed. We have not changed our portfolio trading pricing for several years. It's been very stable. Now unfortunately, it's at a very low price point relative to our core business. So when we do exceptionally well in portfolio trading like we did in May, average price per million comes down for the platform. So some people are interpreting what is mix of our business as a price adjustment. It's absolutely wrong. So there is a misunderstanding in the market around how pricing is determined on our platform. in the dealer-to-dealer space, we are saying we're not engaging in the price war anymore. We feel comfortable with our offering. At the end of the day, dealers can use our platform at a reduced price. -- the liquidity on our platform is a unique offering. Right now, if you look at spreads in the credit market, there's lack of dispersion. We're at the tightest credit spreads we've seen in history -- so that liquidity is not valued right now. It's a little bit commoditized. So when that -- when we see the market spreads move out, that liquidity suddenly becomes a premium. And that savings that you get, we've seen dealers switch to other platforms for small savings of dealer RFQ and then come back because the liquidity was not compelling. The savings on a unique liquidity trade versus dealer-to-dealer fee, it's immaterial relative to the spread when the spreads matter. So look, I just think we're in the client-to-dealer space -- at the end of the day, moving blocks from chat and phone to our platform is our priority, and that's what we're investing in. And excitingly, that's the area of growth that we're seeing on the platform. Blocks are moving from chat from phone onto e-trading platforms.

So stepping back for a minute, we have some market makers coming up here later today. Fixed income electronification has been 1 of the more compelling narratives in the fixed income world and in markets in general over the last decade. How do you think about where we are in the overall electronification journey -- and with some of these market makers, alternative liquidity providers coming into the space, how are they changing the structure of the credit markets in which you operate?

So I'm excited what we're seeing in terms of new entry into the credit space. They've all been working on it for some time, all at different stages of growth. I would say that the nonbank liquidity provider is just continues to grow on our platform. they certainly get the benefit of our distribution. So if you're a nonbank liquidity player and you want to trade with clients well, you come to market access because we have the largest distribution with clients and we have an all-to-all market that is like no other. We've onboarded more clients globally than anyone else has run an all-to-all business. So that's the exciting piece for the nonbanks that all come to us first. What I'm seeing is nonbank liquidity -- now I grew up with these nonbank liquidity providers. I was 1 for my years at Virtu. I know their business intimately well. they run 1 global P&L. That's the excitement. They are trading in ETF a credit future and an underlying corporate bond and large institutional banks, that's hard for them to do. They're all chasing that model. They just charge smaller spread where they get excited where nonbanks do exceptionally well is when spreads gap out. When there's an arbitrage between the ETF, the underlying or the underlying and the credit future. What's exciting to me is credit futures are growing. You see the AUM, you see the use of these products growing. That is just another tool to introduce nonbank liquidity into the credit market. When I look at the overall credit cycle and I spent a lot of time on this because we are at a ridiculously mature cycle. If you look at how IG is priced from a spread perspective, people think there is no defaults coming to our market for years to come. So the spread alone is mispriced and that spread will change. History is very predictive of that. But when that spread changes, I know the nonbanks are going to come in and their models are going to take off. And so we've seen a number of nonbanks in high yield in particular, struggle because the spread was so tight. The arbitrage between the ETF and the underlying high-yield bond was very tight. When -- as soon as that gaps out, these nonbanks are really, really feel the benefit of their kind of global reach and ability to cross trade between ETFs, futures and underlying corporate bonds.

Sure. Switching gears, I want to talk about tokenization. I think we talk about credit today. We talk about other aspects of the fixed income market. that are still not even in electronics to in 1 with the phone. The tomanization feels pretty far out for a lot of these things, but it is such a hot topic today. Where do you think tokenization fits into the credit ecosystem? And what potentially good market access as roll being there, if you thought about it.

Sure. I mean Tokisation, one, I just want to remind people, we've been talking about tokens and blockchain since '05 in equities. So the fact that we're finally there, and we're going to see issuers issuing on blockchain is exciting to me. When I look at the credit market, again, I do think moving people from chat and phone to E is probably -- we should do that before we tokenize it. But there's heavily investments in that. There's areas of application that I'm super excited about. One thing I didn't mention on our new issue platform. What's exciting about that is it was designed for public debt. So it's public credit. -- but we also built it for private. One of the biggest challenges for private credit issuers is the new issue process. It's the most important part -- but that -- so that process that we built out allows for private credit over the same solution that we're delivering public credit over. That's an exciting piece of that product that we're delivering. I think there's great application for tokenization in things that settle inefficiently. -- sell loans, private credit. Those are all areas where there's still paper moving through the system. People are signing documents to trade private credit and loans. And that back office desperately needs efficiency. The area that we have to remind ourselves in public credit, in U.S. credit, in particular, there is something called the ETF underlying arbitrage. It all settles net at our clearing house. That net settlement allows for a nonbank or an ETF market maker to be short of $1 billion and long $1 billion and never make payment. That is netted and they have no margin. That is a very efficient enterprise that we run. We have reduced the settlement cycle, but that ability, that liquidity that comes from that net process is lost in blockchain or tokenization. So as long as it doesn't disrupt the liquidity that we see in the market, which is that heavily -- I mean we are -- we have so many ETFs in our market. We have so many underlying securities going into those ETFs. That is a very important component of liquidity in our market, including the corporate bond market. Remember, our corporate bonds settle and margin at NSCC where the ETF settlement margin. So that benefit is in nets. And people -- they just don't under-- Unfortunately, I spent some time in clearing. I don't brag about that. But knowing the clearing platform and how it works, there's huge efficiency, huge leverage in our market delivered by net settlement in today, which you lose in tokenization -- our keynote yesterday was Frank Local from DTCC this a topic that was brought up I want to ask about capital allocation. The stock has, as I said, been under pressure recently. How are you thinking about capital allocation priorities in that context? And does the current valuation change the calculus between buybacks, organic investment and M&A -- great question. So obviously, we had launched the ASR back in December. We spent the first quarter. Our priority was pay down of debt. after our first quarter, we announced what that paydown looked like. We had gone -- we actually accelerated that paydown. So we were excited about that level of debt that we were able to pay down after the first quarter. What that affords us is really flexibility when it comes to capital allocation. We obviously like the stock at a higher level back when we launched the -- we do look at our investment currently into our platform. We are rolling out new product with the current investment we've made. So we're now in product delivery mode this summer is all product delivery mode, and that's what I'm most excited about. So in terms of capital allocation, we have a very cash-generated business. And if you look at the first quarter, even if you look at May, the margin is quite attractive. -- for a small enterprise like ourselves. So we have fully invested in delivery. It just gives us that more flexibility to use our balance sheet where appropriate. So it's really the change from Q1, which was a priority to pay down. Now we are afforded with the flexibility to deploy cash where we see most appropriate.

Sure. And then we'll end on a big picture question. You laid out a 3-year growth algorithm within the last 6 or 8 months, 8% to 9% revenue growth, 75 to 125 basis points of margin expansion annually. The stock price is telling us that the market thinks you're not going to hit those targets. So what do you think that investors are most underappreciating about market access right now? And what are the catalysts to get your business back on track?

Yes, it's a great question. Yes, clearly, when I look at the price of the stock, it's really not believing our targets. And when I look at the targets, our rollout was part of those targets. So the delivery that's coming this summer, the new issue platform that we're rolling out tomorrow. -- was all part of that plan. I remind everyone, we had record earnings, record quarter, record revenue in Q1. We had a slowdown in April with a very large new issuance -- so 1 month did redirect the market in the wrong way. The other noise that I hear in the market is this pricing war noise where people are concerned about where pricing is going to end up. fee per million will come down not because we're cutting fees but because the protocols that we're delivering come in at lower fee per million. block trading will be an exciting endeavor for us. We're showing evidence of that block. The market thinks the blocks are going to stay on chat and phone. If you look at the model, the market is predicting chat and phone is not going away in corporate credit. I think that is a mistaken belief or they're believing that if they do convert they're at a lower price level. We don't have to change price to get a client to trade a block on our platform. I see 2 very important components coming to market that will change block trading. One is the new issue platform. that trading of new issue is block trading related. Whenever we see new issue pop in a quarter or a month like we saw in May, block trading ends up being a bigger part of the market on TRACE. So we're attacking the block market at the new issue, which is very exciting. The other piece of our block trading is rolling out next week where Today, traders are forced to commit orders to market access. So if you're in your OMS and Aladdin or Charles River, you have to commit that order. Typically, that's a binary decision by the trade. They say, I'm going to just commit what I can -- I know I'm comfortable trading and market access. That's been 1 issue that we've had for moving blocks over. we're launching next Friday, actually, what we call indications of interest. It allows the client, the trader on the desk to move a block into market access while managing that block on their desktop, like it never left. And then we will use our -- some of our new technology like our Pragma technology to find a natural match for that block and alert that client. And so they can firm up that order and trade the block. So it allows us to grow our opportunity of blocks. Again, changing how blocks are traded in U.S. credit is going to happen. We're trying to be the first mover there. The investment is all about changing getting people off phone and chat. I'm confident that will happen.

All right. Well, I think that's all the time we have Chris, thanks so much for joining us.

Yes. Thanks.