24 October 2022 ICMA has published the first semi-annual report providing detailed data on the EU and UK bond market trading landscape. The report was produced in collaboration with Propellant digital.
The report captures more than 80% of all secondary bond market transactions (both corporate bonds and sovereign bonds) reported in the EU and UK over the period January through June 2022. It is therefore relatively representative of the aggregated bond market data as reported under the MiFID II/MiFIR obligation.
One of the core objectives of MiFID II/MiFIR was to provide greater public transparency of secondary trading activity in the EU and UK markets. As solutions have evolved to consolidate the disperse sources of public data, ICMA has sought to leverage the capabilities of such initiatives to provide a detailed and holistic view of bond market activity in the EU and UK.
ICMA intends to update the report on a semi-annual basis in order to be able to track long-term trends in secondary bond market structure and activity. ICMA also expects that in time both the depth and quality of the underlying data will improve, particularly as reports such as this seek to present a definitive picture of the European bond markets.