Trading activity on Tradeweb’s European ETF marketplace during March was the strongest month on record since the platform’s launch in late 2012. Over €17.7 billion in notional volume was traded during the month, beating the previous record set in January 2017 by €2.4bn.

Adriano Pace, Managing Director, Equity Derivatives at Tradeweb.

Tradeweb’s European platform has also achieved a record-breaking first quarter, with total traded volume amounting to €45.1bn, up 19% on Q4 2016.

Adriano Pace, managing director for equity derivatives at Tradeweb, said: “Without a doubt, it was a very busy quarter for European-listed ETFs. Analysis of platform activity in the first three months of the year shows that ‘buys’ outstripped ‘sells’ in all ETF categories except for Aggregates and Government Bonds.“

Equity ETFs were the only asset class to see net buying in March, as ‘buys’ mirrored ‘sells’ in fixed income and commodity-based products. Overall fixed income ETF activity was above average at 36% of the entire platform flow, outperforming the previous 12-month rolling average by two percentage points. Equity Europe was the most heavily-traded ETF category with €3.1bn in notional volume. Nearly €1.8bn was executed in corporate bond ETFs, the most active fixed income segment.

Source: Tradeweb.

Top ten ETFs by traded volume

The iShares Core Corporate Bond UCITS ETF was the most heavily traded ETF on Tradeweb’s European ETF Marketplace during March, marking the third consecutive month a fixed income product has topped the top-ten list. The fund, which aims to track the performance of the Barclays Euro Corporate Bond Index, was also ranked fifth among the top ten instruments during the first quarter.

The top ten most traded ETFs on Tradeweb’s European ETF Marketplace during February are listed below:

Source: Tradeweb.