00:00We have some numbers out for March when it comes to TradeWeb, your electronic bond trading platform
00:05records when it comes to trading volume, $87 trillion. Break that number down for us because
00:12we know March was a hectic month, but what really stood out to you? We've been busy.
00:18We started off the year pretty excited for the setup. My view was debt markets continue to grow.
00:26The hyperscalers are going to be selling bonds. The central banks are less active in our space.
00:33Private sector intermediation is back. You guys have seen the all in profitability levels of the
00:40legacy banks. And then, by the way, you have these incredibly interesting firms like Jane Street and
00:45Citadel arriving big time in our market. The one thing that was missing was real volatility in the
00:54marketplace. You know, be careful what you wish for. Yeah, because it arrived. It arrived in a big
01:00way. Big disruption, obviously, in the commodities markets and a big repricing of the short end of the
01:05Treasury curve. So we've done, I think, exceptionally well, probably in areas that you would expect us to.
01:12We're a you know, we're a pretty big international company. So our global swaps business, particularly
01:17European swaps business flourished in this environment. And then other markets like government bonds and
01:23specifically TBA mortgages, the liquid side of the mortgage market, also did very well. So in
01:29general, in, you know, very difficult market environments, I think, you know, the function of
01:34the market held in and held in pretty well. And you're really seeing technology arrive in force and
01:40the velocity that technology allows in the marketplace to take over. So big activity when it comes to
01:46government bonds, when it comes to mortgages, you could make the case that you just look at the price
01:51action when it comes to the corporate credit market. And things have looked maybe complacent,
01:56maybe a little bit placid compared to what we're seeing in treasuries. For example, what are you
02:00seeing on your platform when it comes to rates versus credit? You're seeing, you know, more volumes
02:06in rates. I think you're right in your thesis. I think a little more kind of sitting on your hands
02:11with a lot of uncertainty, obviously, in the markets, but specifically, specifically speaking,
02:17in credit. You know, we've kind of arrived as a public company making a big push to be not just
02:23a
02:23rates platform, but also to provide a tremendous amount of transparency in credit. For the most part,
02:29that's working. But I think a tremendous amount of room to go specifically around transparency of
02:35larger risk trades and credit. I think that's important. Are we going to see some more transparency,
02:39particularly on the transaction side, like when some of these deals actually? Yeah, we're getting
02:44there. We're getting there. And as always, these are kind of evolutions around transparency in more
02:49complex marketplaces. But the general feeling is, particularly with, you know, these kinds of
02:54firms that I was describing before, Citadel and Jane Street, it's a moment. It's a moment before all of
03:00this becomes much more transparent. I do want to talk about kind of the volatile times we're in,
03:05but also a lot of the different strategies people have to either sort of trade on that,
03:11hedge on that, bet on that, what if you will. It's not obviously just through the traditional
03:14platforms or some of the newer, newfangled ones like yourselves. We've seen a lot of people flock
03:19to Polymarket, Calci, the prediction markets as well. You have a partnership, an investment with
03:24Calci. I am curious as to what your goal is with that. You like those guys. Yeah. And from my
03:29perspective, it's kind of interesting, right? Like, how do you defend your leadership role in a way
03:35you were describing in these traditional markets? And as a public company, how do you make the right
03:40bets on kind of innovation? You know, and how is the next generation of traders really going to
03:45access liquidity and access data? And so to make an obvious point from our perspective, these are
03:50pretty smart guys. You know, not every predictive market is built the same from our perspective. So way
03:57more oriented towards financially oriented, predictive markets. We think the data is really,
04:03really important. We think it's a moment in time where, you know, real macro risk will wind up
04:08needing and wanting that data. And we think that's an important thing for, you know, our community to be
04:14able to price risk, ultimately using versions of that data. Will the market ultimately evolve into how we
04:22think about an institutional market? We'll see. I would say we've had significant client interest
04:29the moment that headline kind of arrived with us and Kalshi. As you guys know well, we don't chase
04:35headlines. You know, it's about the substance. And we think there's a lot of substance in their data
04:41that's worthwhile from our perspective. So that headline arrived in mid-February, news of that partnership
04:47that you have with Kalshi. You told our Bloomberg News colleagues at the time that you're considering
04:51adding trading capabilities maybe down the line. Right now, it's just data, as I understand it. So
04:57I'm curious how those conversations are progressing at TradeWeb when you consider, you know, actually
05:03allowing people to sort of trade in the prediction markets. We're kind of working on and thinking about
05:07protocols. I would say it's interesting. Like, I think sometimes innovation occurs, you know,
05:14slightly before maybe a regulatory lens enters the picture. And we think there's possibilities around
05:21positives of regulation around predictive markets. We've tended to play a good role with the regulators
05:26around that. I think we're bringing the right lens and the right stamp on it. We've had interest from,
05:32you know, the biggest hedge funds in the world, the biggest banks really trying to understand how we think
05:38about the cadence of a protocol in terms of really building out liquidity in these kind of markets. It's
05:43exciting, you know, from our perspective. So you have this partnership with Kalshi. I do want to talk
05:48a little bit about your M&A strategy because, you know, you took over as CEO in 2023 exactly a
05:55year ago
05:55today. Actually, it was announced that you struck an agreement to buy a money market fund portal. You've
05:59made a few other deals in your time as well. So what is your current strategy when it comes to
06:05deal
06:05making? Because, you know, I do notice that your stock is higher by about 18 percent. Thank you.
06:10We're trying, you know, from my perspective at the company a long time. And, you know, sometimes
06:15it's amazing how big we've gotten. So we hit two billion in revenue in 25, lots of growth along the
06:22way as we've gotten there and then very strong margins. So it's a really good operating business
06:27model with something very important, which is a lot of room to grow, continuing to innovate and
06:34create transparencies in these businesses that we are in. That being said, it's an interesting world
06:41out there. And we are a very ambitious company. And we're going to look at deals that we think make
06:47sense. We love networks. So any kind of network that we can bring into the markets that we live in,
06:52we think that's something, you know, quite interesting to us.
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