Rick did roll at the Goldman Sachs US Financial Services Conference. He was ready and had answers that reminded CatFIX of Tommy (aka "The Motor City Cobra" aka "The Hitman") Hearn's vicious 1-2 right cross combination. Mr. McVey goes first point then second point in response to a question about competitive landscape.
I transcribed his interview last year and I am the middle of transcribing it this year. The interviewer sounds like the same person from the year before. At the beginning of the interview last year the analyst made a snarky remark about initiating coverage of MarketAxess as a sell. Google searches and others familiar with the matter informed CatFIX that the analyst had an initial price target of $175.
I WISH Mr. McVey would have started the interview with a smirk and a quick jab about the SELL recommendation. How did that recommendation go for GS clients? Just a little pop. But he didn't......PR....what are you going to do.
As you can see from the below chart, that sell recommendation wasn't so hot.
I 100% agrees with Mr. McVey. We need standards for reporting volume in OTC fixed income and transparency with fee models from the big three (TW,BBG,MKTX). Regulations can get wild and the US market doesn't need a MIFID II type of mess.
More importantly, this message should not be wasted on analysts and investors. I feel that this is the message Mr. McVey needs to tell the dealer community. He needs to point to a metric that will justify the cost of MarketAxess and the cost of FIX integration for MarketAxess with inventory management systems. How is the head of a desk (mainly a regional) supposed to decide which fixed income electronic trading platform is worth the budget without metrics?
Look at what Citi did in the FX market. You don't think that will happen in Fixed Income? MarketAxess has posted enviable volumes that I try to on a monthly basis and their reporting makes it easy to separate electronic versus semi-electronic. Transparency is key and has always been encouraged so we say to you Mr. McVey - A tip of the cap and keep rolling with devastating Haymakers about transparency.
Minute 11 and 30 seconds.