Corporate bond market news with commentary from founder and industry veteran Steve Lynner.
Some corporations are borrowing at lower interest rates than governments, resulting in “negative spreads,” as credit spreads compress to historically tight levels.
"This reinforces our view that credit markets are fundamentally driven by related benchmarks, and that these instruments should consistently trade at a spread relative to their benchmark."
— Steve Lynner, CEO, Dynamic Trading Solutions
Investment-grade issuers rushed to market with nearly $15 billion of new bonds following the Fed's rate cut, with credit spreads nearing multi-decade lows.
"This surge in issuance activity demonstrates exactly why institutional investors need our anonymous multilateral protocol—when $15 billion hits the market in a single day, traditional phone-based trading simply cannot handle the scale or speed required for optimal execution."
— Steve Lynner, CEO, Dynamic Trading Solutions
Goldman Sachs urged regulators to adjust trade-reporting rules for very large trades, proposing delays to improve risk management.
"Goldman’s proposal highlights the exact problem we solve—large institutional trades need protection from information leakage, which is why our protocol ensures complete anonymity without compromising regulatory transparency."
— Steve Lynner, CEO, Dynamic Trading Solutions
The U.S. move to T+1 trade settlement has improved corporate bond market conditions, with trading costs falling 12% and margin requirements dropping 29%, freeing up capital for dealers to deploy elsewhere.
"T+1 settlement proves that structural improvements can dramatically reduce costs and free up capital—our multilateral protocol delivers similar efficiency gains specifically for the large-block trades that still rely on outdated methods."
— Steve Lynner, CEO, Dynamic Trading Solutions
Automated trading algorithms proved resilient during market volatility, with 80% of high-grade corporate bond quotes on MarketAxess generated by algos. Electronic trading reached 52% of all U.S. investment-grade volume.
"While algorithms now dominate price discovery, the final frontier remains large institutional blocks where human relationships and phone calls still prevail—this is precisely where our anonymous electronic protocol creates the most value."
— Steve Lynner, CEO, Dynamic Trading Solutions
Credit trading volumes hit fresh records with $46 billion in U.S. corporate bonds trading daily in 2024 (up 21% from 2023), surging to $56 billion per day in early 2025 thanks to rapid electronification.
"These record volumes validate our thesis that electronic trading is the future, but the real opportunity lies in the $20-75 million institutional trades that still happen over the phone and leak information to the market."
— Steve Lynner, CEO, Dynamic Trading Solutions