TCA Fixed Income Report (July 6, 2021)

The overall aim is the measurement of transaction costs on a sample set of actual Q1/21 cash transactions.

While the absolute goal in trading corporate bonds from a transaction cost perspective is to buy as close to the bid side of the market as possible, and to sell at as close to the ask side as possible in order to reduce costs of transaction.

An appropriate yardstick would be to consider a mid-price quote (half-way between the bid and the ask), that is for contrasting trades execution prices against Overbond bond mid-price levels.