The days when you had to rely on two human beings yelling at each other across a trading floor to buy 100 shares of stock are long gone, and the electronic trading platforms that have largely replaced voice trading have transformed Wall Street and global financial markets. Tradeweb Markets (TW +2.06%) has been a leader in the electronic trading transition, and it continues to push forward for new innovations to make trading easier and more effective for its extensive list of clients.
Earlier in this series of articles, you learned about Tradeweb's origins and the ways in which Tradeweb has used its electronic trading prowess to make money. Now, it's time to look at Tradeweb's future, with an eye toward anticipating whether it will prove to be a strong investment for the Voyager Portfolio.
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Building markets one by one
Tradeweb has taken a methodical approach to launching market services and building them into major contributors to its financial success. In 1999, it started offering U.S. Treasury bond trading, and within four years, the company was bringing in over $25 million in revenue from that market. A couple years later, it began trading in mortgage-backed securities and European sovereign government bonds, and both of those markets also became cornerstone products for Tradeweb. Derivatives products in the U.S. and Europe followed. From there, global exchange-traded funds, sweep session trading, cash-credit products, portfolio trading, and emerging market derivatives all became niche product lines in which Tradeweb found success.
Because of its diverse product line, Tradeweb has been able to build connections between products and geographical locations that have fostered positive network effects. The company's strategy to build up asset class, client sector, market location, and trading protocol diversification has been highly effective. Now, clients across the globe appreciate the deep integrations within the Tradeweb platform that make workflows almost effortless.
Many trends favor Tradeweb's future growth
Tradeweb has identified a number of powerful growth themes that should keep the company growing well into the future. Sovereign governments around the world are running sizable budget deficits, and that feeds a steadily expanding pool of government debt that opens up opportunities for fixed-income investors. Big corporations are also taking advantage of relatively low interest rates to raise capital, which has expanded corporate debt markets. ETFs have become more popular not just among retail investors but for institutions as well, and market reform in China is giving Tradeweb a chance to offer products there as a way for global investors to gain access to that increasingly important market.
Meanwhile, increasing regulation, the digitization of workflows, and a greater emphasis on data-driven trading have all made electronic markets look more attractive than their analog counterparts. Moreover, with institutional investors always focused on minimizing costs, their efforts to conduct more of their trading electronically are also supporting Tradeweb's growth.
One particularly notable example of this is the rise in automated trading powered by AI models. Automated intelligence execution, or AiEX for short, now makes up over 40% of institutional trades, and 140 of Tradeweb's top 200 clients are using it. With pre-programmed execution rules that lead to automatic trade execution, AiEX looks likely to keep gaining adoption across the industry.
NASDAQ: TW
Key Data Points
Why the Voyager Portfolio is investing in Tradeweb
The fintech stock arena has been a tough one for investors. Many big players in the space have fallen far short of their full potential. Even well-known consumer-facing companies that have seen business success haven't always been able to translate that into strong stock performance.
Nevertheless, Tradeweb offers a convenient way to invest in both financial market expansion and increased technological innovation. The stock's 25% pullback from recent highs offers some margin of safety. And favorable industry trends seem likely to persist in 2026 and beyond.
That's why I'll be investing in Tradeweb Markets for the Voyager Portfolio once mandated disclosure and trading guidelines allow. If it can continue to use cutting-edge technology to improve its services, Tradeweb stands to keep boosting its market share in the years to come.
