Tradeweb and FTSE Russell have extended their collaboration to include the closing price of U.S. Treasury bonds. The collaboration aims to improve the transparency and reliability of pricing of U.S. government securities for market participants.

New benchmark price for U.S. Treasuries

The two organizations have launched the Tradeweb FTSE U.S. Treasury Closing Price, a set of benchmarks designed to improve the accuracy and reliability of U.S. Treasury pricing, according to a press release. The expansion builds on existing UK government bond and European government bond benchmarks and incorporates trading data from Tradeweb's electronic platform.

Lisa Schirf, CEO of Data and Analytics Tradeweb, said: “As we continue to expand Tradeweb's partnership with FTSE Russell, our clients have access to a broader range of benchmarks that can be used as reliable closing prices for their investment processes, end-of-day trading strategies and other purposes. We believe the Tradeweb FTSE U.S. Treasury Closing Price will be a unique foundation for the global fixed income market."

The new pricing methodology reportedly obtains bid and ask prices based on executable quotes collected through the Tradeweb platform. The methodology includes mid-price across all asset classes and takes into account transaction costs. The dataset covers a range of securities, such as U.S. Treasury bills, bonds, notes, debentures and TIPS, with pricing snapshots at 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. (New York time).

Expanding benchmark pricing

Tradeweb mentioned that this expansion into the U.S. Treasury market is critical to expanding benchmark pricing for a variety of fixed income securities, with a focus on U.S. dollar-denominated credit securities. The platform added that the Tradeweb FTSE U.S. Treasury closing price adheres to the EU and UK benchmark regulations as well as the IOSCO Financial Benchmark Principles.

Last week, Tradeweb Markets reported strong institutional activity. 2024 trading volume reached $41.7 trillion in May, with average daily volume (ADV) up 40% year-over-year to $1.9 trillion.

U.S. government bond ADV increased 33.4% year-over-year to $192.5 billion, driven by broad client sector growth and favorable market conditions. Average daily European government bond volume declined slightly by 0.4% year-on-year to $41.4 billion. Continued volume growth was driven by the adoption of new agreements in Europe and the United Kingdom and increased primary issuance.

In addition, Tradeweb introduced a new feature that connects its repurchase agreement and interest rate swap platforms to enhance the execution of workflows in these markets. The electronic marketplace is expected to improve the efficiency of institutional clients navigating these platforms with the new offering.