Starting in early 2022, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank’s aggressive hiking of interest rates to hedge inflation has posed a challenging environment for bond investors. Now, as the Fed reaches the end of its hiking cycle and traders become confident that a decline in rates is near, high-quality fixed income has the potential to generate high returns for investors. In fact, according to 2024 bond market outlooks from Morgan Stanley to BlackRock to abrdn, investors have a rare opportunity to lock in historically high yields. Stock and bond returns may once again move in opposite directions, positioning diversified portfolios containing a mix of both as the ideal risk-return profile.
Investors today are earning fixed income yields of 4-6%, and this asset class will become an even more appealing investment vehicle as the markets enter a period of more stable rates. General retail investor demand for additional asset class coverage is also growing, as traders are seeking to reduce portfolio volatility and enhance risk-adjusted returns. In response, brokers are feeling the heat to provide electronic access to the attractive, yet hard-to-access bond market.
Even to experienced industry professionals, bonds have long been regarded as “the known unknown.” While factors like interest rates, inflation and geopolitical events are known to affect pricing, the magnitude of these changes can be unpredictable, adding a layer of complexity to forecasting market movements. Developing proprietary technology not only requires significant expertise but can prove costly and time-consuming. What’s more, building an in-house offering requires constant adaptation and maintenance, expending additional resources over time.
Adopting fixed income is a highly strategic move that provides flexibility, both for brokers and individual investors. Financial firms who add support for fixed income can generate a new stream of revenue, cultivate a diverse client base and create an opportunity for client education on the bond market. Individual retail traders can tap in to diversify their portfolios, generate predictable returns, control global risk and hedge against potential declines across other asset classes.
ViewTrade’s fixed income capabilities enable you to arm your retail clients with pricing, quoting, screening and execution tools across their preferred market segments. Our platform provides coverage for listed derivatives, US Treasurys, and municipal and agency bonds, with more instruments added regularly. It offers a wide range of search and filtering tools, visualization capabilities, cutting-edge risk, routing workflows and more. A highly detailed screener enables users to sort via an array of bond characteristics such as coupon, sector and region, and provides advanced charting and liquidity across multiple electronic execution venues.
There are multiple ways to activate your fixed income capabilities with ViewTrade. Give your retail customers access to the full suite of trading solutions via NextGen, our signature retail trading platform featuring a flexible and responsive UI. Users can move freely across windows, extend to multiple monitors and curate custom dashboards. Or, power up via proprietary FIX and API access and customize your clients’ view through your existing products. Both methods tap into ViewTrade’s decades of experience building technology-led solutions for global access.
The efforts our team applies to enhancing and modifying our fixed income platform – especially during such an opportune time for retail traders in the bond market – tie back to our company’s philosophy. For over 20 years, leading brokers and fintechs have relied on us to power their clients’ investment and trading success via global, multi-asset access. Whether you plan to use ViewTrade as your full turnkey solution provider or just for API access, our expert team individually consults with your firm to figure out the solutions that best fit your unique and evolving challenges. We pride ourselves on never competing with our clients and are 100% committed to helping them grow – not just as a provider, but as a true partner in their success.
Let us help you and your clients navigate a shifting bond landscape with unique tools and solutions for fixed income trading. Contact our expert team at sales@viewtrade.com to begin streamlining your retail brokerage capabilities.
To learn more about ViewTrade’s solutions for fixed income trading and investing, download our solutions sheet.
