• Jan
  • 15
  • 2008
  • 4:00 PM

News from the Bonds front

By: Helen Barounis
File Under: Bonds

Hello and Happy New Year! A new voice is being added to the Bonds blog – mine!
Let me introduce myself – I’m Helen Barounis, and I joined the Fixed Income team in September 2007, although I’ve been around the place for a lot longer than that. I started out with the Arca group back in 2000 first as a product trainer and customer relationship manager, and then moved into the realm of Market Data. Of course we’ve morphed into this new entity – NYSE Euronext over the time I’ve been here. When I heard they were forming a team for the Fixed Income side, it was natural that they could use my help!

I’m the Product Specialist for our group – so I’ll be around to help manage access, training, usability and connectivity issues that go with any kind of connectivity to the NYSE Bonds platform. With that, I hope to keep you in the know on any new developments we have on our platform, on any GUIs or third party apps you can use to connect to us, or any other relevant information on our bond market.

I did mention “news”, so on the news front, we have a few new developments.

First, the SEC has approved our new rate structure. We are reducing the transaction fees charged to liquidity takers by creating a staggered fee schedule based on the number of bonds traded. Currently, the fee for hitting/taking bonds is 50 cents per bond; that will stay the same for transactions of up to 10 bonds. For transactions of 11 to 25 bonds, the fee goes down to 20 cents per bond, and for transactions of 26 bonds or more, the fee goes down to 10 cents per bond. In addition, there will be a $100 cap per transaction. The new rate structure should help firms offset the costs of small bond executions. Oh and the new rates are in effect as of today!

Also, we are in final testing mode with the Kestral web-based front end for entering orders to the NYSE Bonds platform and hope to make it available to customers in the next month or so. In addition, we are working with Bloomberg to provide a liquidity taking piece on the Bloomberg TOMS. And if you haven’t noticed, we’re providing some real-time Bonds quotes/prices on our website – you can take a look by accessing http://viewbondsnyse.sytes.net/ (the link can also be found on our NYSE Bonds page at http://www.nyse.com/bonds.

We should have more news for you in the coming months – stay tuned, and I look forward to any questions or comments you may have!

Comments

Helen -- Wow, in your first post, you get to announce a fee reduction? Nice!

Welcome to the club. Look forward to many more posts!

by Ray Pellecchia on January 15, 2008 4:09 PM

Helen - Thanks for introducing yourself, and for contributing to Ray's awesome blog.

What are the goals of the new price structure on the revenue front (i.e., fixed income revenue will grow by what percent)? And what are your goals on the market share front (i.e, fixed income market share will grow by what percent)?


by Barry on January 16, 2008 9:25 AM

Thanks for the question Barry...

Basically, its been the Exchange's goal to bring greater transparency, liquidity and lower costs to the Fixed Income market. The new fee structure is just one of the steps we're taking to achieve this goal.

Of course our hope is that by lowering costs, we'll attract customers to the platform. But it's really not my place (or the Exchange's policy) to provide any guidance on forecasting revenue performance or market share.

by Helen Barounis on January 16, 2008 1:24 PM

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