Overview of on-exchange bond markets (January - October 2019)
This article gives an overview of the on-exchange bond listings and trading activities over the first ten months of 2019.
Listing activities
As of end-October 2019, a total of 232,868 bonds are listed on 72 exchanges [1] over the world. [2] EMEA is the region with largest number of bond listings by far, comprising 75% of the total. Based on the WFE data, four out of five of the world’s top five exchanges by number of listings are European exchanges (see Table 1).
Compared to October 2018, the total number of bonds listed increased by 8% with APAC being the region that experienced fastest growth (24%), followed by the Americas (+5%) and EMEA (+4%).
A total of 33,408 new bond listings were recorded between January to October 2019 in 68 markets; [3] this represents a decrease of 7% year-on-year (YOY) and is the result of a fall in the number of new bonds listings in EMEA (-9%). Compared to the same period of 2018, the number of new listings stayed at similar levels in the Americas (-1%) and APAC (no significant change).
If we restrict our attention to the 61 exchanges that submit data on capital raised through bonds, we find that the capital raised by bonds on exchanges dropped by 18% YOY, to around USD6 trillion. [4] It is worth noting, however, that the YOY change is driven by a 59% fall in value of capital raised in the Americas. EMEA and APAC recorded an increase in value of capital raised by 15% and 21% respectively.
Trading activities
In the first ten months of 2019, a total of 111.3 billion trades were recorded on 66 exchanges. [5] Bonds were traded on-exchange most actively in APAC, which constitutes 78% of the trade volume, while 19% of the trades were conducted in EMEA and only 3% of the trades were executed in the Americas. We also observe higher volatility in APAC.
The total number of trades increased by 57% YOY. In particular, we observe a significant increase of 76% in the number of trades in APAC. The increase was driven by robust growth in bond trades at the Hochiminh Stock Exchange, Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange. EMEA and the Americas recorded an increase in bond trade volumes of 12% and 28% respectively.
Figure 2: Number of bond trades by geographies
The total value of bond trades on 68 exchanges amounted to USD11.7 billion. [6] Even though bond trading activities in EMEA were less active compared to APAC, bonds were traded in EMEA at much higher values. EMEA accounted for 70% of the total value of bond trades, followed by APAC (24%) and the Americas (5%).
Finally, the total value of bond trades slightly dropped by 1% YOY. APAC and the Americas recorded 14% and 5% growth in total value of bond trades respectively, with Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange experiencing particularly strong growth (+200% and +144% respectively) when compared to the same period of 2018. In EMEA the total value of bond trades dropped by 5%.
Figure 3: Value of bond trades by geographies
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[1] 63% of these 72 exchanges are located in EMEA, 25% in APAC, and 14% in the Americas.