MarketAxess Holdings Inc. MKTX announced impressive growth in its trading volumes for the third quarter of 2024. The total credit average daily trading volume (“ADV”) reached nearly $14.1 billion, marking a year-over-year increase of more than 26.5%. This growth was driven by notable gains across various segments, including 35.7% rise in U.S. high-grade ADV, 19.1% boost in emerging markets ADV and 27.4% growth in Eurobonds ADV. Total ADV rose 38.4% to $40.5 billion in the September quarter.

Among the segments, Eurobonds stood out with an ADV increase of 42.3% year over year in September alone. Conversely, U.S. high-yield trading saw a 1.1% decline on the platform for the third quarter, although it experienced an 8.1% increase year over year in September. This quarterly dip suggests that high-yield trading faced challenges in sustaining consistent momentum throughout the quarter. Its estimated market share also decreased 310 basis points compared with the previous year. On a positive note, U.S. high-yield new issuance surged 56.1% from the same period last year, reaching $36.7 billion.

Its order and execution workflow solution, AxessIQ, reached $131 million ADV, increasing 32.2% year over year. The company continues to roll out X-Pro to its global client base and believes this to be an important part of MKTX’s high-touch trading initiative.

Due to the product and protocol mix shift, its third quarter variable transaction fees per million for total credit was around $149, down 3.9% from the year-ago period. However, total portfolio trading ADV surged 162.8% year over year in the third quarter to $1.1 billion. Higher trading volumes and continued solid Eurobonds’ performance are likely to buoy MKTX’s third-quarter results. The recent interest rate cut is expected to lead to improving trading volumes as volatility increases and investors shift to securities with better returns, like emerging markets. This will benefit MKTX’s top line in the future.

Zacks Rank & Price Performance

MarketAxess currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

MarketAxess shares have gained 6.2% in the past month compared with 0.1% growth of the industry it belongs to.

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Key Picks

Some better-ranked stocks in the Finance space are Community Financial System, Inc. CBU, American Express Company AXP and WisdomTree, Inc. WT. While Community Financial sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), American Express and WisdomTree carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Community Financial’s earnings surpassed estimates in two of the trailing four quarters and missed the mark twice, the average surprise being 0.83%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CBU’s 2024 earnings indicates an improvement of 1.8% while the consensus estimate for revenues implies growth of 12.8% from the corresponding year-ago figures. The consensus mark for CBU’s 2024 earnings has moved 2.4% north in the past 30 days.

The bottom line of American Express beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed the mark once, the average surprise being 7.72%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AXP’s 2024 earnings indicates an improvement of 17.2% while the consensus estimate for revenues implies growth of 9% from the corresponding year-ago figures. The consensus mark for AXP’s 2024 earnings has moved 0.5% north in the past 30 days.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for WisdomTree’s 2024 earnings indicates 51.4% year-over-year growth. In the past two months, WT has witnessed one upward estimate revision against none in the opposite direction. It met earnings estimates twice in the past four quarters and beat twice, with an average surprise of 5.9%.

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