When electronic trading platforms get disrupted

MarketAxess won the battle. Tradeweb won the war

In April 2019, Tradeweb went public. Across town at the headquarters of competitor MarketAxess, things couldn’t have been better, at least at the surface level.

MarketAxess had seen a share price increase of 2844% over the prior 10 years and 400% over the prior 5 years. As Tradeweb’s share price rose sharply in its first few weeks following the IPO, Jim Cramer recommended switching into MarketAxess, which he thought offered more value. The Marketaxess share price initially rose further. But the inverse Cramer was spot on over the medium-term, with MarketAxess seeing its share price decline by 30% from then and 67% from its December 2020 peak. By contrast, Tradeweb has seen its share price more than triple.