Total notional traded in European corporate bonds reached €5,397 billion in 2024, according to ICMA’s latest Secondary Market Data Report, an 11.8% increase on 2023’s results. Trade counts rose by a slightly smaller 7.7% to 6.7 million, suggesting that market participants are making larger-size trades.
Spanish corporate bonds were traded in the largest sizes, at an average notional value of €1.1 billion, ICMA reported. GDP-denominated bonds followed at €1 billion, and French at €920 million.
These rankings have remained broadly consistent over recent years, although the report notes that average sizes are generally below Q1 2022 levels. Average trade sizes have been trending upwards in the majority of currencies but fallen in GBP-denominated bonds. However, UK-executed trades still tend to have approximately 10% higher trade sizes than those in the EU, ICMA notes.
ICMA also notes a variance in yearly activity patterns in the corporate bond markets. Historically, volumes and trade counts have followed a yearly structure of strong notional trading volumes in Q1, a decline in Q2 and Q3 before an uptick in Q4. In 2024, this pattern was more subdued than previous years, it said.
Overall, Euro-denominated bonds have increased their strength in the market, with more than 60% of trades conducted in the currency. USD-denominated bond strength has fallen in tandem, dropping to 30% of market share.
While the US remained the top issuer in terms of volume and trade count in primary markets, US corporate bonds represented 19.6% of total notional traded in 2024. By trade count, they represented just over a quarter (25.4%) of the market.
In terms of where trades took place, the majority (52.8%) of volumes were executed on systematic internalisers (SIs) and off-venue platforms in 2024. On-venue dealer-to-client (D2C) trades took 46.8% of notional traded, while just 0.4% of volume went through on-venue dealer-to-dealer (D2D) execution.
By trade count, this was reversed. D2C venues routed 59.6% of transactions, and SIs 40.2%. As such, ICMA concludes, SIs are mainly used for larger trades.
©Markets Media Europe 2025
