A big investor buying corporate bonds in 2004 still picked up the phone and called dealers one at a time. Stocks had already moved onto screens. MarketAxess, founded in New York in 2000, let those investors ask many dealers for prices at once and trade electronically. When it went public in November 2004, it was one of the few survivors from a crowded field of bond-trading startups born in the dot-com years.

Many Dealers, One Request

MarketAxess bet that corporate bonds would follow stocks onto electronic markets. Bonds trade less often than stocks and come in far more varieties, which made that a harder bet. MarketAxess began by letting investors request quotes from several dealers in one step. That saved time and got better prices. Over time it let investors trade with each other, and it built data products from the trades flowing through its system.

Twenty Years as MKTX

MarketAxess priced its shares at $11 in November 2004 and listed on Nasdaq. Electronic bond trading spread a little more each year, and the company grew with it. It added high-yield, emerging-market and international bonds. It became one of the leading venues for credit trading worldwide. More than twenty years after its offering, it is still public and trades as MKTX.

Cover: The Market, Camille Pissarro. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a busy marketplace.