MARKETAXESS HOLDINGS INC (MKTX)

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition to historical information, this discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements relating to future events and the future performance of MarketAxess that are based on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about us and our industry. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results and timing of various events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, as more fully described in this section, in “Item 1A. Risk Factors”, in “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Except as may be required by applicable law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason, even if new information becomes available or other events occur in the future.

The following discussion includes a comparison of our Financial Results, Cash Flow Comparisons and Liquidity and Capital Resources for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. A discussion of changes in our Financial Results and Cash Flow Comparisons from the year ended December 31, 2022 to the year ended December 31, 2023 may be found in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” of Part II of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023.

Executive Overview

MarketAxess operates leading electronic trading platforms delivering greater trading efficiency, a diversified pool of liquidity and significant cost savings to our clients across the global fixed-income markets. Approximately 2,100 institutional investor and broker-dealer firms use our patented trading technology to efficiently trade U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, Eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S. government bonds and other fixed-income securities. We leverage our diverse set of trading protocols, automated and algorithmic trading solutions, intelligent data and index products and a range of post-trade services to provide an end-to-end trading solution to our robust network of platform participants. Our award-winning Open Trading marketplace is widely regarded as the preferred all-to-all trading solution in the global credit markets, creating a unique liquidity pool for a broad range of credit market participants.

We provide automated and algorithmic trading solutions that we believe, when combined with our integrated and actionable data offerings, help our clients make faster, better-informed decisions on when and how to trade on our platforms. In 2024, we continued our roll-out of X-Pro, our newest trading platform, to more seamlessly combine our trading protocols with our proprietary data and pre-trade analytics. Our AI-driven technology, such as CP+, our real-time pricing engine, is a critical data input and pricing source for multiple MarketAxess trading protocols and solutions, including Auto-X™ and portfolio trading. In 2024, we leveraged our recent acquisition of Pragma, a quantitative trading technology provider specializing in algorithmic and analytical trading services, to accelerate our development of AI driven execution algorithms across all of our key product areas. We believe that we will be able to enhance our capabilities and increase our efficiency by leveraging Pragma technology across our technology stack.

We also provide a number of integrated and actionable data offerings, including CP+ and Axess All, to assist clients with real-time pricing and trading decisions and transaction cost analysis. We offer a range of post-trade services, including straight-through processing, post-trade matching, trade publication, regulatory transaction reporting and market and reference data across fixed-income and other products.

We operate in a large and growing market that provides us with a significant opportunity for future growth, due, in part, to the relatively low levels of electronic trading in many of our largest current product areas. We offer Open Trading for most of our products in order to capitalize on this addressable market by increasing the number of potential trading counterparties and providing our clients with a menu of solutions at each step in the trading process. We believe that Open Trading drives meaningful price improvement for our clients and reduces risk in fixed-income markets by creating a global, diversified pool of liquidity whereby our institutional investor, dealer and alternative liquidity provider clients can all interact on an anonymous basis. Institutional investors can also send trading inquiries directly to their traditional broker-dealer counterparties on a disclosed basis, while simultaneously accessing additional counterparties through our anonymous Open Trading solutions.

We derive revenue from commissions for transactions executed on our platforms, information services, post-trade services and technology services. Our expenses consist of employee compensation and benefits, depreciation and amortization, technology and communication expenses, professional and consulting fees, occupancy, marketing and advertising, clearing costs and general and administrative expenses.

Our objective is to provide the leading global network for the trading of fixed-income securities for our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients to help them connect, be more efficient and achieve better trading outcomes. We seek to achieve this goal by offering our clients full end-to-end electronic trading solutions and workflow tools, powered by a broad array of proprietary data and analytical tools. The key elements of our strategy are discussed in Part I, Item 1. “Business – Our Strategy.”

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Critical Factors Affecting Our Industry and Our Company

Economic, Political and Market Factors

The global fixed-income securities industry is risky and volatile and is directly affected by a number of economic, political and market factors that may impact trading volume. These factors could have a material adverse or positive effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These factors include, among others, fixed-income market conditions, the current interest rate environment, including the volatility of interest rates and investors’ forecasts of future interest rates, the duration of bonds traded, economic and political conditions in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, and the consolidation or contraction of our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients.

In 2024, the market backdrop for the Company showed strong increases in estimated U.S. credit market volumes, with U.S. high-grade and U.S. high-yield market average daily trading volume up 25.3% and 8.9%, respectively, compared to the prior year. However, credit spreads and credit spread volatility remained at historically low levels. A strong new issue calendar, which we have seen in recent periods, and low levels of credit spread volatility can contribute to a decrease in exchange-trade fund (“ETF”) market maker activity on our platforms, as the increased availability of new issues may lead to reduction in secondary market trading, especially in U.S. high-yield. A strong new issue calendar can also negatively impact our market share in the short-term, but is expected to positively impact secondary trading volumes over the long-term. The decrease in U.S. high-yield activity during the year negatively impacted our total credit average variable fee per million, but the increase in higher duration bonds traded in U.S. high-grade positively impacted our total credit average variable fee per million.

With regard to the international products traded on our platforms, Eurobonds and emerging markets estimated market volumes increased significantly compared to the prior year. The increase in emerging markets estimated market volumes was driven by a more favorable macroeconomic outlook in developed markets, reflecting easing concerns over inflation and the lower probability of an economic recession.

Because the majority of our assets are short-term in nature, they are not significantly affected by inflation. However, the rate of inflation impacts our expenses, such as employee compensation, technology and communications expenses, which may not be readily recoverable in the prices of our services. Interest rates are currently higher than recent periods due to a period of increased inflation. To the extent interest rates remain high or inflation has other adverse effects on the securities markets or the economy, our financial position and results of operations may be adversely affected.

We expect that current cash and investment balances, in combination with cash flows that are generated from operations and the ability to borrow under our Credit Agreement (as defined below), will be sufficient to meet our liquidity needs and planned capital expenditure requirements for at least the next twelve months. We ended the year with $749.9 million in available borrowing capacity under the Credit Agreement and capital significantly in excess of our regulatory requirements.

Competitive Landscape

The global fixed-income securities industry generally, and the electronic financial services markets in which we engage, in particular, are highly competitive, and we expect competition to intensify in the future. Sources of competition for us will continue to include, among others, bond trading conducted directly between broker-dealers and their institutional investor clients over the telephone or electronically and other multi-dealer or all-to-all trading platforms. Competitors, including companies in which some of our broker-dealer clients have invested, have developed or acquired electronic trading platforms or have announced their intention to explore the development of electronic platforms or information networks that may compete with us.

We primarily compete on the basis of our client network, the liquidity provided by our dealer, and, to a lesser extent, institutional investor clients, the total transaction costs and fees associated with our services, the breadth of products, protocols and services offered, as well as the quality, reliability, security and ease of use of our platforms. We believe that our ability to grow volumes and revenues will largely depend on our performance with respect to these factors.

There has been increased demand for portfolio trading workflows over the last few years, which has resulted in heightened competition among trading platforms to enhance their portfolio trading offerings and expand them across different geographies and products. During periods of relatively lower credit spread volatility, clients have been using portfolio trading workflows in lieu of more established trading protocols designed to generate price competition on individual bonds. Our dealer clients have also increased their usage of matching sessions offered by competing platforms in recent periods. To the extent that our clients increase their use of portfolio trading and matching session protocols offered by other platforms, our market share in those products could decrease. Due to the large size of the trades and the concentration of activity at the end of the month, portfolio trading can drive significant swings in trading volumes and estimated market share.

Our competitive position is enhanced by the unique liquidity provided by our Open Trading functionalities and the integration of our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients with our electronic trading platforms and other systems. We have focused on the unique aspects of the fixed-income markets we serve in the development of our platforms, working closely with our clients to provide a system that is suited to their needs.

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Regulatory Environment

Our business is subject to extensive regulations in the United States and internationally, which may expose us to significant regulatory risk and cause additional legal costs to ensure compliance. The existing legal framework that governs the financial markets is periodically reviewed and amended, resulting in the enactment and enforcement of new laws and regulations that apply to our business. In January 2022, the SEC proposed rules that will expand Regulation ATS and Regulation SCI to alternative trading systems (ATS) that trade government securities and amend the SEC rule regarding the definition of an “exchange” to include Communication Protocol Systems, such as our request-for-quote protocols. Based on these proposed rules, we expect that we will have to operate additional trading protocols in compliance with Regulation ATS and we could become subject to Regulation SCI for certain parts of our business in the future. The SEC also recently adopted final rules regarding the central clearing of certain secondary market transactions involving U.S. Treasury securities, which are currently set to become effective for certain cash market transactions on December 31, 2025 and repurchase and reverse repurchase transactions on June 30, 2026. Once effective, this central clearing mandate will impact certain of our participants who do not centrally clear such trades today, and some of our investor clients have expressed concerns about using platforms that will require the clearing of any resultant trades executed on such platforms. While we expect this change will increase our own platform efficiency, it is still unknown at this time the full impact of this change, and what effect it will have, whether positive or negative, on our industry, our clients or us. In addition, following the change in U.S. presidential administrations, it is unknown to what extent new legislation will be passed into law or whether pending or new regulatory proposals will be adopted, abandoned or modified, or what effect such passage, adoption, abandonment or modification will have, whether positive or negative, on our industry, our clients or us.

We provide regulated services to our clients within the E.U. in reliance upon the authorizations our subsidiaries have received from the AFM in the Netherlands. Brexit has led to an ongoing divergence between the U.K. and E.U. financial regulations, which has made it more difficult and costly to comply with the extensive government regulation to which we are subject. The cost and complexity of operating across increasingly divergent regulatory regimes has increased and is likely to continue to increase in the future.

Compliance with new regulations may require us to dedicate additional financial and operational resources, which may adversely affect our profitability. For example, DORA, which focuses on the security of network and information systems of financial services entities, as well as third parties which provide certain ICTs to them, became applicable to portions of our business in January 2025. DORA has, among other things, introduced significant additional ICT-related governance, risk management, resilience testing and sub-contracting and notification requirements. However, we also believe new regulations may increase demand for our platforms and we believe we are well positioned to benefit from those regulatory changes that cause market participants to seek electronic trading platforms that meet the various regulatory requirements.

For further description of the regulations which govern our business, see Part I, Item 1. “Business—Government Regulation.”

Technology Environment

We must continue to enhance and improve our electronic trading platforms. The markets in which we compete are characterized by increasingly complex protocols, systems, technology and infrastructure requirements that require us to devote substantial resources to modify and adapt our services. Our future success will depend on our ability to enhance our existing products and services, develop and/or license new products and technologies that address the increasingly sophisticated and varied needs of our existing and prospective broker-dealer and institutional investor clients and respond to technological advances and emerging industry and regulatory standards and practices, including cloud and AI technologies, on a cost-effective and timely basis. For example, in 2023, we introduced MarketAxess X-Pro, our new trading platform, which provides traders with a flexible user experience, intuitive workflows and access to our proprietary data and pre-trade analytics. In addition, as the overall share of electronic trading grows in global credit products, we are experiencing continued demand for, and growth in, our automated and algorithmic trading solutions. We also support a large and growing base of dealer market making algorithms. We plan to continue to focus on technology infrastructure and automation initiatives to support more efficient trade execution by our clients.

We experience cybersecurity threats and incidents from time to time. However, as of the date of this report, MarketAxess has not experienced a cybersecurity threat or incident that has materially affected the Company in at least the past three years. Cybersecurity incidents could impact revenue and operating income and increase costs. We therefore continue to make investments in our cybersecurity infrastructure and training of employees, which may result in increased costs, to strengthen our cybersecurity measures.

See also Part I, Item 1A. – “Risk Factors, Technology, IT Systems and Cybersecurity Risks” and Part I, Item 1C – “Cybersecurity.”

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Trends in Our Business

The majority of our revenue is derived from commissions for transactions executed on our platforms between and among our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients. We believe that the following are the key variables that impact the notional value of such transactions on our platforms, the amount of commissions earned by us and our variable transaction fees per million:

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the number of participants on our platforms and their willingness to use our platforms instead of competitors’ platforms or other execution methods;

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the particular trading protocol that our participants use to trade bonds on our platforms;

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the frequency and competitiveness of the price responses by participants on our platforms;

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the number of markets that are available for our participants to trade on our platforms;

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the overall level of activity in these markets;

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the duration of the bonds trading on our platforms, which may be affected by inflation, among other macroeconomic factors; and

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the particular fee plan under which we earn commissions.

We believe that overall corporate bond market trading volume is affected by various factors including the absolute levels of interest rates, the direction of interest rate movements, the level of new issues of corporate bonds and the volatility of corporate bond spreads versus U.S. Treasury securities. Because a significant percentage of our revenue is tied directly to the volume of securities traded on our platforms, it is likely that a general decline in trading volumes, regardless of the cause of such decline, would reduce our revenues and have a significant negative impact on profitability.

As further described under “— Critical Factors Affecting our Industry and our Company — Economic, Political and Market Factors” and “— Results of Operations — Year Ended December 31, 2024 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2023”, in 2024, our trading volumes increased and our average variable transaction fee per million decreased.

Components of Our Results of Operations

Commission Revenue

Commissions are recognized on a trade date basis, are generally calculated as a percentage of the notional dollar volume of bonds traded on our platforms and vary based on the type, size, yield and maturity of the bond traded, as well as individual client incentives. Bonds that are more actively traded or that have shorter maturities are generally charged lower commissions, while bonds that are less actively traded or that have longer maturities generally command higher commissions.

For Open Trading trades that we execute between and among institutional investor and broker-dealer clients on a matched principal basis by serving as counterparty to both the buyer and the seller, we earn our commission through the difference in price between the two trades. For the majority of U.S. Treasury matched principal trades, commissions are invoiced and recorded on a monthly basis.

Credit Commissions. Credit includes U.S. high-grade corporate bonds, high-yield bonds, emerging markets bonds, Eurobonds, municipal bonds and leveraged loans. Our U.S. high-grade corporate bond fee plans generally incorporate variable transaction fees and fixed distribution fees billed to our broker-dealer clients on a monthly basis. Certain broker-dealers participate in fee programs that do not contain monthly distribution fees and instead incorporate additional per transaction execution fees and minimum monthly fee commitments. Under these fee plans, we electronically add the transaction fee to the spread quoted by the broker-dealer client. The U.S. high-grade transaction fee is generally designated in basis points in yield and, as a result, is subject to fluctuation depending on the duration of the bond traded.

Commissions for high-yield bonds, emerging markets bonds, Eurobonds, municipal bonds and leveraged loans generally vary based on the type of the instrument traded using standard fee schedules. Our high-yield fee plan structure is similar to our U.S. high-grade fee plans. Certain dealers participate in a high-yield fee plan that incorporates a variable transaction fee and a fixed distribution fee, while other dealers participate in a plan that does not contain monthly distribution fees and instead incorporates additional per transaction execution fees and minimum monthly fee commitments.

The average credit fees per million may vary in the future due to changes in yield, years-to-maturity and nominal size of high-grade bonds traded on our platforms and changes in product mix or trading protocols.

Credit distribution fees include any unused monthly fee commitments under our variable fee plans.

Rates Commissions. Rates includes U.S. Treasury, U.S. agency and European government bonds. Commissions for rates products generally vary based on the type of the instrument traded. U.S. Treasury fee plans are typically volume tiered and can vary based on the trading protocol. The average rates fee per million may vary in the future due to changes in product mix or trading protocols.

We anticipate that average fees per million may change in the future. Consequently, past trends in commissions are not necessarily indicative of future commissions.

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Other Commissions. Other commissions include equities and foreign exchange commissions for Pragma’s algorithmic trading services. Commissions for equities and foreign exchange are volume-tiered and consist of variable transaction fees that are billed monthly.

Information Services

We generate revenue from data licensed to our broker-dealer clients, institutional investor clients and data-only subscribers; professional and consulting services; technology software licenses; and maintenance and support services. These revenues are either for subscription-based services transferred over time, and may be net of volume-based discounts, or one-time services. Revenues for services transferred over time are recognized ratably over the contract period while revenues for services transferred at a point in time are recognized in the period the services are provided. Customers are generally billed monthly, quarterly, or annually; revenues billed in advance are deferred and recognized ratably over the contract period.

Post-trade Services

We generate revenue from regulatory transaction reporting, trade publication and post-trade matching services. Customers are generally billed in the current month or monthly in arrears and revenue is recognized in the period that the transactions are processed. Revenues billed in advance are deferred and recognized ratably over the contract period. We also generate one-time implementation fees for onboarding clients, which are invoiced and recognized in the period the implementation is complete.

Technology Services

Technology services include technology services revenue generated by Pragma and revenue generated from telecommunications line charges to broker-dealer clients.

Expenses

In the normal course of business, we incur the following expenses:

Employee Compensation and Benefits. Employee compensation and benefits is our most significant expense and includes employee salaries, stock-based compensation costs, other incentive compensation, employee benefits and payroll taxes.

Depreciation and Amortization. We depreciate our computer hardware and related software, office hardware and furniture and fixtures and amortize our capitalized software development costs on a straight-line basis over three to five years. We amortize leasehold improvements on a straight-line basis over the lesser of the life of the improvement or the remaining term of the lease. Intangible assets with definite lives, including purchased technologies, customer relationships and other intangible assets, are amortized over their estimated useful lives, which range from one to 15 years, using either a straight-line or accelerated amortization method based on the pattern of economic benefit that we expect to realize from such assets. Intangible assets are assessed for impairment when events or circumstances indicate a possible impairment.

Technology and Communications. Technology and communications expense consists primarily of costs relating to software and licenses, maintenance on software and hardware, cloud hosting costs, data feeds provided by outside vendors, U.S. government bonds technology platform licensing fees, data center hosting costs and our internal network connections. The majority of our broker-dealer clients have dedicated high-speed communication lines to our network in order to provide fast data transfer. We charge our broker-dealer clients a monthly fee for these connections, which is recovered against the relevant expenses we incur.

Professional and Consulting Fees. Professional and consulting fees consist primarily of accounting fees, legal fees and fees paid to information technology and other consultants for services provided for the maintenance of our trading platforms, information and post-trade services products and other services.

Occupancy. Occupancy costs consist primarily of office and equipment rent, utilities and commercial rent tax.

Marketing and Advertising. Marketing and advertising expense consists primarily of branding and other advertising expenses we incur to promote our products and services. This expense also includes costs associated with attending or exhibiting at industry-sponsored seminars, conferences and conventions, and travel and entertainment expenses incurred by our sales force to promote our trading platforms, information services and post-trade services.

Clearing Costs. Clearing costs consist of fees that we are charged by third-party clearing brokers and depositories for the clearing and settlement of matched principal trades, regulatory reporting fees and variable transaction fees assessed by the provider of our third-party middle office system.

General and Administrative. General and administrative expense consists primarily of general travel and entertainment, board of directors’ expenses, regulatory fees, subscription costs, charitable contributions, provision for doubtful accounts, various state franchise and U.K. value-added taxes and other miscellaneous expenses.

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Expenses may continue to grow in the future, notably in employee compensation and benefits as we increase headcount to support investment in new products, operational support and geographic expansion, depreciation and amortization due to increased investment in new products and enhancements to our trading platforms, and technology and communication costs. Expenses may also grow due to increased regulatory complexity, acquisitions or the continued effects of inflation.

Other Income (Expense)

Interest Income. Interest income consists of interest income earned on our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, deposits and investments.

Interest Expense. Interest expense consists of financing charges incurred on short-term borrowings.

Equity in Earnings of Unconsolidated Affiliate. Equity in earnings of unconsolidated affiliate represents the proportionate share of our equity method investee’s net income.

Other, Net. Other, net consists of realized and unrealized gains and losses on trading security investments and foreign currency forward contracts, foreign currency transaction gains or losses, investment advisory fees, credit facility administrative fees, gains or losses on revaluations of contingent consideration payable and other miscellaneous revenues and expenses.

Critical Accounting Estimates

This Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations discusses our Consolidated Financial Statements, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (“GAAP”). The preparation of these financial statements requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the reported amounts of income and expenses during the reporting periods. We base our estimates and judgments on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results may differ from these estimates under varying assumptions or conditions. Critical accounting estimates for us include stock-based compensation.

Stock-based compensation

We maintain the MarketAxess Holdings Inc. 2020 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2020 Plan”) which provides for the grant of restricted stock, restricted stock units, performance shares, performance stock units (collectively, “Full Value Awards”), stock options and other stock-based awards to encourage employees, consultants and non-employee directors to participate in our long-term success. We make critical accounting estimates related to performance stock units granted under the 2020 Plan (the “PSUs”).

In 2022, 2023 and 2024, the PSUs were granted to the executive officers and certain senior managers. Each PSU is earned or forfeited based on our level of achievement of certain predetermined metrics, including pre-tax adjusted operating margin, U.S. credit market share and revenue growth excluding U.S. credit. The vested share payout ranges from zero to 200% of the PSU target. The number of PSUs that vest, if any, is determined by the level of achievement of the performance metrics during the three-year performance periods, as certified by the Compensation and Talent Committee following the conclusion of the performance period. In addition, participants must provide continued service through the vesting date, subject to death, disability and qualified retirement exceptions, as applicable. Compensation expense for the PSUs is measured using the fair value of our stock at the grant date and estimates of future performance and actual share payouts. Each period, we make estimates of the current expected share payouts and adjust the life-to-date compensation expense recognized since the grant date. As of December 31, 2024, a 10.0% change in the expected final share payouts would increase or decrease the life-to-date compensation expense by $1.5 million. The estimated final share payouts for the 2022 and 2023 awards as of December 31, 2024 decreased 26.6% compared to December 31, 2023.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

See Note 2 for a discussion of any recent accounting pronouncements relevant to our Consolidated Financial Statements.

Segment Results

We provide end-to-end trading solutions, including the operation of electronic platforms for the trading of fixed-income and other securities and related data, analytics, compliance tools, post-trade services, automated trading services and technology services. We consider our operations to constitute a single business segment because of the highly integrated nature of these products and services within the trading lifecycle, the use of a single inter-connected suite of technology solutions underlying all services, the financial markets in which we compete and our worldwide business activities. See Note 16 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for certain geographic information about our business required by GAAP.

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Results of Operations

Year Ended December 31, 2024 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2023

The following table summarizes our financial results for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023:

Changes in average foreign currency exchange rates compared to the U.S. dollar had the effect of increasing revenues and expenses by $3.0 million and $2.4 million, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2024.

Revenues

Our revenues for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

Total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2024 include a full year of Pragma revenues of $31.7 million, while total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2023 include three months of Pragma revenues of $7.6 million.

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Commissions

Our commission revenues for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

Credit variable transaction fees increased by $37.3 million, driven by a 13.5% increase in trading volume, partially offset by a 5.3% decrease in total credit average variable transaction fee per million. Open Trading credit volume totaled $1.0 trillion during the year ended December 31, 2024, up 8.7% from the year ended December 31, 2023, and Open Trading credit variable transaction fees represented 33.0% and 35.6% of total credit variable transaction fees for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively. Rates variable transaction fees increased by $4.4 million, driven principally by a 23.3% increase in trading volumes, partially offset by a 1.6% decrease in average variable transaction fee per million. Other variable transaction fees include equities and foreign exchange commissions earned by Pragma.

Credit fixed distribution fees decreased $7.8 million mainly due to migrations to variable fee plans, partially offset by the addition of new dealer fixed fee plans.

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Our trading volumes for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023 were as follows:

For volume reporting purposes, transactions in foreign currencies are converted to U.S. dollars at average monthly rates.

The 17.4% increase in our U.S. high-grade volume was principally due to an increase in estimated market volumes, partially offset by a decrease in our estimated market share. Estimated U.S. high-grade market volume as reported by TRACE increased by 25.9% to $9.0 trillion for the year ended December 31, 2024 compared to the year ended December 31, 2023. Our estimated market share of total U.S. high-grade corporate bond volume decreased to 19.0% for the year ended December 31, 2024 from 20.4% for the year ended December 31, 2023. U.S. high-yield volume decreased by 15.9% primarily due to a decrease in our estimated market share. Our estimated market share of total U.S. high-yield corporate bond volume decreased to 13.2% for the year ended December 31, 2024 from 17.1% for the year ended December 31, 2023.

Emerging markets and Eurobond volumes increased by 19.7% and 15.2%, respectively, mainly due to an increase in estimated market volumes. Other credit volumes increased 20.9%, mainly due to an increase in our estimated municipal bond market share. Rates trading volume increased 23.3%, primarily due to an increase in estimated market volumes.

Our average variable transaction fee per million for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023 was as follows:

Credit average variable transaction fee per million decreased by 5.3% to $150.26 per million for the year ended December 31, 2024, mainly due to product and protocol mix-shift reflecting lower levels of U.S. high-yield activity and increased portfolio trading, which was partially offset by an increase in the duration of U.S. high-grade bonds traded on our platforms.

Information Services. Information services revenue increased by $4.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, mainly due to net new data contract revenue of $3.3 million and the positive impact of foreign currency fluctuations of $0.8 million.

Post-Trade Services. Post-trade services revenue increased by $2.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, principally due to net new contract revenue of $1.6 million and the positive impact of foreign currency fluctuations of $0.7 million.

Technology Services. Technology services revenue increased by $9.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2024 due to the inclusion of a full-year of technology services revenue generated by Pragma.

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Expenses

The following table summarizes our expenses for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023:

Total expenses for the year ended December 31, 2024 include a full year of Pragma expenses of $32.0 million, while total expenses for the year ended December 31, 2023 include three months of Pragma expenses of $8.7 million.

Employee compensation and benefits increased by $29.0 million, primarily due to an increase in salaries, taxes and benefits of $20.2 million on higher employee headcount, largely driven by the Pragma Acquisition (as defined below), higher employee incentive compensation of $7.6 million and higher stock compensation expense of $1.2 million.

Depreciation and amortization increased by $3.3 million primarily due to higher amortization of software development costs of $2.6 million and higher amortization of intangibles of $1.2 million, offset by lower depreciation of office hardware of $0.8 million.

Technology and communications expenses increased by $9.4 million, primarily due to higher software subscription costs of $3.1 million, higher integration and connectivity costs of $3.2 million, higher market data costs of $1.0 million, higher data center and cloud hosting costs of $1.2 million and higher U.S. Treasury platform licensing fees of $0.8 million.

Professional and consulting fees decreased by $4.6 million primarily due to lower IT consulting costs of $2.6 million, lower acquisition-related legal expenses of $1.4 million and lower other consulting expenses of $1.3 million, offset by higher audit and tax costs of $0.9 million.

Other Income (Expense)

Our other income (expense) for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

Interest income increased by $3.6 million primarily due to higher corporate bond and U.S. Treasury investment balances during the year ended December 31, 2024.

Interest expense decreased by $0.3 million primarily due to lower financing charges incurred on our short-term borrowing arrangements.

Equity in earnings of unconsolidated affiliate represents the proportionate share of net income of our equity method investee.

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Other, net decreased by $2.7 million principally driven by unrealized losses of $1.0 million on our U.S. Treasury investments in the current period compared to unrealized gains of $0.5 million in the prior period and higher credit facility fees of $0.9 million.

Provision for Income Taxes.

The provision for income taxes and effective tax rate for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023 were as follows:

The provision for income taxes for the year ended December 31, 2024 included benefits of $1.9 million for return-to-provision adjustments, $0.6 million for the settlement of tax liability, interest and penalties in connection with unrecognized tax benefits and $2.0 million for the purchase of renewable energy-related transferable tax credits. In comparison, the provision for income taxes for the year ended December 31, 2023 included benefits of $5.4 million for return-to-provision adjustments, $2.0 million for the settlement of tax liability, interest and penalties in connection with unrecognized tax benefits and $1.5 million for the purchase of renewable energy-related transferable tax credits. Our consolidated effective tax rate can vary from period to period depending on the geographic mix of our earnings, changes in tax legislation and tax rates and the amount and timing of excess tax benefits related to share-based payments, among other factors.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

During the year ended December 31, 2024, we have met our funding requirements through cash on hand, internally generated funds and short-term borrowings. Cash and cash equivalents and corporate bond and U.S. Treasury investments totaled $698.6 million as of December 31, 2024. Our investments generally consist of investment-grade corporate bonds and U.S. Treasury securities. We limit the amounts that can be invested in any single issuer and invest in short- to intermediate-term instruments whose fair values are less sensitive to interest rate changes.

In August 2023, we entered into the Credit Agreement, which provides aggregate commitments totaling $750.0 million, including a revolving credit facility, a $5.0 million letter of credit sub-limit for standby letters of credit and a $380.0 million sub-limit for swingline loans. The Credit Agreement will mature on August 9, 2026, with our option to request up to two additional 364-day extensions at the discretion of each lender and subject to customary conditions. As of December 31, 2024, we had $0.1 million in letters of credit outstanding and $749.9 million in available borrowing capacity under the Credit Agreement. Borrowings under the Credit Agreement will bear interest at a rate per annum equal to an alternate base rate or the adjusted term SOFR rate, plus an applicable margin that varies with our consolidated total leverage ratio. The Credit Agreement requires that we satisfy certain covenants, including a requirement to not exceed a maximum consolidated total leverage ratio. We were in compliance with all applicable covenants at December 31, 2024. See Note 13 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion of the Credit Agreement.

In connection with their self-clearing operations, certain of our operating subsidiaries maintain agreements with a settlement bank to allow the subsidiaries to borrow an aggregate of up to $500.0 million on an uncommitted basis, collateralized by eligible securities pledged by the subsidiaries to the settlement bank, subject to certain haircuts. Borrowings under these agreements will bear interest at a base rate per annum equal to the higher of the upper range of the Federal Funds Rate, 0.25% or one-month SOFR, plus 1.00%. As of December 31, 2024, the subsidiaries had no borrowings outstanding and up to $500.0 million in available uncommitted borrowing capacity under such agreements. See Note 13 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion of these agreements.

Under arrangements with their settlement banks, certain of our operating subsidiaries may receive overnight financing in the form of bank overdrafts. As of December 31, 2024, we had no overdrafts payable outstanding.

As a result of our self-clearing and settlement activities, we are required to finance certain transactions, maintain deposits with various clearing organizations and clearing broker-dealers and maintain a special reserve bank account for the benefit of customers pursuant to Rule 15c3-3 of the Exchange Act. As of December 31, 2024, the aggregate amount of the positions financed, restricted cash deposits and customer reserve balances associated with our self-clearing and settlement activities was $189.6 million. These requirements can fluctuate based on trading activity, market volatility or other factors which may impact our liquidity or require us to use our capital resources.

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Cash Flows for the Year Ended December 31, 2024 Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2023

Our cash flows were as follows:

Cash flows from operating activities consist primarily of net income adjusted for non-cash items that primarily include depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation expense, deferred tax expense and changes in receivables and payables on the consolidated statement of financial condition. The $51.5 million increase in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to higher net income and favorable changes in accounts receivable, prepaid and other assets, trading investments, accrued employee compensation and accounts payable accrued expenses and other liabilities, offset by higher net receivables from broker-dealers, clearing organizations and customers associated with our clearing activities.

The $68.4 million decrease in net cash used in investing activities was primarily attributable to lower cash used for acquisitions of $78.5 million, offset by higher net purchases of available-for-sale investments of $6.0 million and higher capital expenditures of $4.1 million.

The $54.3 million increase in net cash used in financing activities was principally due to higher repurchases of common stock of $75.5 million and higher cash dividends of $3.0 million, offset by lower payments of contingent consideration of $12.5 million, higher exercises of stock options of $2.0 million and lower withholding tax payments on restricted stock vesting of $9.6 million.

The $15.8 million change in the effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents was driven by changes in the cumulative translation adjustment which reflects the strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus the British Pound and Euro in the year ended December 31, 2024 compared to the weakening of the U.S. dollar during the year ended December 31, 2023.

Past trends of cash flows are not necessarily indicative of future cash flow levels. A decrease in cash flows may have a material adverse effect on our liquidity, business and financial condition.

Other Factors Influencing Liquidity and Capital Resources

We believe that our current resources are adequate to meet our liquidity needs and requirements, including commitments for capital expenditures, in the short-term (during the next 12 months). However, our future liquidity and capital requirements will depend on a number of factors, including liquidity requirements associated with our self-clearing operations and expenses associated with product development and expansion and new business opportunities that are intended to further diversify our revenue streams. We may also acquire or invest in technologies, business ventures or products that are complementary to our business. In the event we require any additional financing, it will take the form of equity or debt financing. Any additional equity offerings may result in dilution to our stockholders. Any debt financings, if available at all, may involve restrictive covenants with respect to dividends, issuances of additional capital and other financial and operational matters related to our business. In addition, in the long-term (beyond 12 months), we believe our liquidity needs and requirements will be affected by the factors discussed above.

Certain of our U.S. subsidiaries are registered as broker-dealers and are subject to the applicable rules and regulations of the SEC, FINRA and the CFTC. These rules contain minimum net capital requirements, as defined in the applicable regulations. Certain of our foreign subsidiaries are regulated by the FCA in the U.K. or other foreign regulators and must maintain financial resources, as defined in the applicable regulations, in excess of the applicable financial resources requirement. As of December 31, 2024, each of our subsidiaries that are subject to these regulations had net capital or financial resources in excess of their minimum requirements. As of December 31, 2024, our subsidiaries maintained aggregate net capital and financial resources that were $574.6 million in excess of the required levels of $33.8 million.

Each of our U.S. and foreign regulated subsidiaries are subject to local regulations which generally limit, or require the prior notification to or approval from such regulated entity’s principal regulator before, the repayment of borrowings from our affiliates, paying cash dividends, making loans to our affiliates or otherwise entering into transactions that result in a significant reduction in regulatory net capital or financial resources.

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We execute securities transactions between our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients on a matched principal basis by serving as counterparty to both the buyer and the seller in trades. Our operating subsidiaries settle such transactions using their self-clearing operations or through the use of third-party clearing brokers or settlement agents. Settlement typically occurs within one to two trading days after the trade date. Cash settlement of the transaction occurs upon receipt or delivery of the underlying instrument that was traded. Under both the self-clearing and the third-party clearing models, we may be exposed to credit risk in the event a counterparty does not fulfill its obligation to complete a transaction or if there is an error in executing a matched principal transaction. Pursuant to the terms of the securities clearing agreements, each third-party clearing broker has the right to charge us for any losses they suffer resulting from a counterparty’s failure on any of our trades. We did not record any liabilities or losses with regard to counterparty failures for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023. Substantially all of our open securities failed-to-deliver and securities failed-to-receive transactions as of December 31, 2024 have subsequently settled at the contractual amounts.

In the normal course of business, we enter into contracts that contain a variety of representations, warranties and indemnification provisions. Our maximum exposure from any claims under these arrangements is unknown, as this would involve claims that have not yet occurred.

We have leases for corporate offices and equipment with initial lease terms ranging from one year to 15 years. We have total future contractual rent payments on these leases of $94.1 million, with $12.8 million due within the next 12 months and $81.3 million due beyond 12 months.

We enter into foreign currency forward contracts to economically hedge our exposure to variability in certain foreign currency transaction gains and losses. As of December 31, 2024, the notional value of our foreign currency forward contract outstanding was $64.5 million and the fair value of the liability was $0.9 million.

In January 2022, our Board authorized the 2022 Repurchase Program for up to $150.0 million. In August 2024, our Board authorized the 2024 Repurchase Program for up to an additional $200.0 million. As of December 31, 2024, we had $225.0 million of remaining capacity under the Repurchase Programs. As of January 31, 2025, we had $220.0 million of remaining capacity under the Repurchase Programs. Shares repurchased under the Repurchase Programs will be held in treasury for future use.

In January 2025, our Board approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.76 per share payable on March 5, 2025 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on February 19, 2025. Any future declaration and payment of dividends will be at the sole discretion of our Board.

See Item 5 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional discussion of our repurchases of our common stock and our dividend policy.

On April 19, 2024, we entered into an agreement to acquire an additional 49.0% interest in RFQ–hub Holdings LLC for approximately $37.9 million of cash consideration. The acquisition is subject to various closing conditions, including the receipt of certain regulatory approvals. Upon the closing of the acquisition, we will hold a 92.0% controlling stake in RFQ-hub Holdings LLC.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to reporting financial results in accordance with GAAP, we use certain non-GAAP financial measures: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”), EBITDA margin and free cash flow. We define EBITDA margin as EBITDA divided by revenues. We define free cash flow as net cash provided by/(used in) operating activities excluding the net change in trading investments and net change in securities failed-to-deliver and securities failed-to-receive from broker-dealers, clearing organizations and customers, less expenditures for furniture, equipment and leasehold improvements and capitalized software development costs. We believe these non-GAAP financial measures, when taken into consideration with the corresponding GAAP financial measures, are important in understanding our operating results. EBITDA, EBITDA margin and free cash flow are not measures of financial performance or liquidity under GAAP and therefore should not be considered an alternative to net income or cash flow from operating activities as an indicator of operating performance or liquidity. We believe that these non-GAAP financial measures, when taken into consideration with the corresponding GAAP financial measures, provide additional information regarding our operating results because they assist both investors and management in analyzing and evaluating the performance of our business.

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The table set forth below presents a reconciliation of our net income to EBITDA and net income margin to EBITDA margin, as defined, for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023:

The table set forth below presents a reconciliation of our net cash provided by operating activities to free cash flow, as defined, for the years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023:

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Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition to historical information, this discussion and analysis contains forward-looking statements relating to future events and the future performance of MarketAxess that are based on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about us and our industry. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results and timing of various events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, as more fully described in this section, in “Item 1A. Risk Factors”, in “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Except as may be required by applicable law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason, even if new information becomes available or other events occur in the future.

The following discussion includes a comparison of our Financial Results, Cash Flow Comparisons and Liquidity and Capital Resources for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. A discussion of changes in our Financial Results and Cash Flow Comparisons from the year ended December 31, 2021 to the year ended December 31, 2022 may be found in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” of Part II of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022.

Executive Overview

MarketAxess operates leading electronic trading platforms delivering greater trading efficiency, a diversified pool of liquidity and significant cost savings to our clients across the global fixed-income markets. Over 2,000 institutional investor and broker-dealer firms use our patented trading technology to efficiently trade U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, emerging market debt, Eurobonds, municipal bonds, U.S. government bonds and other fixed-income securities. Our award-winning Open Trading marketplace is widely regarded as the preferred all-to-all trading solution in the global credit markets, creating a unique liquidity pool for a broad range of credit market participants. We leverage our diverse set of trading protocols, automated and algorithmic trading solutions, intelligent data and index products and a range of post-trade services to provide an end-to-end trading solution to our robust network of platform participants.

We provide automated and algorithmic trading solutions that we believe, when combined with our integrated and actionable data offerings, will help our clients make faster, better-informed decisions on when and how to trade on our platforms. In 2023, we introduced X-Pro, our newest trading platform, to more seamlessly combine our trading protocols with our proprietary data and pre-trade analytics. We expect that our recent acquisition of Pragma, a quantitative trading technology provider specializing in algorithmic and analytical trading services, will accelerate our development of AI driven execution algorithms across all of our key product areas.

We operate in a large and growing market that provides us with a significant opportunity for future growth, due, in part, to the relatively low levels of electronic trading in many of our largest current product areas. We offer Open Trading for most of our products in order to capitalize on this addressable market by increasing the number of potential trading counterparties and providing our clients with a menu of solutions at each step in the trading process. We believe that Open Trading drives meaningful price improvement for our clients and reduces risk in fixed-income markets by creating a global, diversified pool of liquidity whereby our institutional investor, dealer and alternative liquidity provider clients can all interact on an anonymous basis. Institutional investors can also send trading inquiries directly to their traditional broker-dealer counterparties on a disclosed basis, while simultaneously accessing additional counterparties through our anonymous Open Trading solutions.

We also provide a number of integrated and actionable data offerings, including CP+™ and Axess All®, to assist clients with real-time pricing and trading decisions and transaction cost analysis. We have a range of post-trade services, including straight-through processing, post-trade matching, trade publication, regulatory transaction reporting and market and reference data across fixed-income and other products.

We derive revenue from commissions for transactions executed on our platforms, information services, post-trade services and technology services. Our expenses consist of employee compensation and benefits, depreciation and amortization, technology and communication expenses, professional and consulting fees, occupancy, marketing and advertising, clearing costs and general and administrative expenses.

Our objective is to provide the leading global electronic trading platforms for fixed-income securities, connecting broker-dealers and institutional investors more easily and efficiently, while offering a broad array of trading information and technology services to market participants across the trading cycle. The key elements of our strategy are discussed in Part I, Item 1. “Business – Our Strategy.”

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Critical Factors Affecting Our Industry and Our Company

Economic, Political and Market Factors

The global fixed-income securities industry is risky and volatile and is directly affected by a number of economic, political and market factors that may impact trading volume. These factors could have a material adverse or positive effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These factors include, among others, credit market conditions, the current interest rate environment, including the volatility of interest rates and investors’ forecasts of future interest rates, the duration of bonds traded, economic and political conditions in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, and the consolidation or contraction of our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients.

During the second and third quarters of 2023, we experienced challenging operating conditions in the fixed-income markets, as the prospect of renewed inflation triggered a rapid rise in long-term bond yields. Such rise in bond yields during the second and third quarters of 2023 coupled with lower years to maturity of the bonds traded on our platforms relative to 2022 resulted in a decrease in the duration of U.S. high-grade bonds traded on our platforms, which had a negative effect on our average variable transaction fee per million, principally in U.S. high-grade during the quarters. In addition, the low levels of credit spread volatility during the second and third quarters of 2023 contributed to a decrease in ETF market maker activity, which we believe had a negative impact on our ability to increase our U.S. high-yield volumes. In the fourth quarter of 2023, market volatility increased, which benefited ETF market maker activity and U.S. high-grade and U.S. high-yield market volumes.

The failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March 2023 created bank-specific and broader financial institution liquidity risk and concerns, which may result in stricter bank capital and liquidity requirements. Future adverse developments with respect to specific financial institutions or the broader financial services industry may lead to market-wide liquidity shortages, impair the ability of companies to access working capital needs, and create additional market and economic uncertainty.

There has been increased demand for green bonds and other securities linked to environmental, social and governance factors in the fixed-income markets in which we operate.

Because the majority of our assets are short-term in nature, they are not significantly affected by inflation. However, the rate of inflation impacts our expenses, such as employee compensation, technology and communications expenses, which may not be readily recoverable in the prices of our services. To the extent inflation continues to result in rising interest rates or has other adverse effects on the securities markets or the economy, it may adversely affect our financial position and results of operations.

We expect that current cash and investment balances, in combination with cash flows that are generated from operations and the ability to borrow under our 2023 Credit Agreement (as defined below), will be sufficient to meet our liquidity needs and planned capital expenditure requirements for at least the next twelve months. We ended the quarter with $749.9 million in available borrowing capacity under the 2023 Credit Agreement and capital significantly in excess of our regulatory requirements.

Competitive Landscape

The global fixed-income securities industry generally, and the electronic financial services markets in which we engage in particular, are highly competitive, and we expect competition to intensify in the future. Sources of competition for us will continue to include, among others, bond trading conducted directly between broker-dealers and their institutional investor clients over the telephone or electronically and other multi-dealer or all-to-all trading platforms. Competitors, including companies in which some of our broker-dealer clients have invested, have developed or acquired electronic trading platforms or have announced their intention to explore the development of electronic platforms or information networks that may compete with us.

We primarily compete on the basis of our client network, the liquidity provided by our dealer, and, to a lesser extent, institutional investor clients, the total transaction costs associated with our services, the breadth of products, protocols and services offered, as well as the quality, reliability, security and ease of use of our platforms. We believe that our ability to grow volumes and revenues will largely depend on our performance with respect to these factors.

There has been increased demand for portfolio trading workflows over the last few years, which has resulted in heightened competition among trading platforms to enhance their portfolio trading offerings and expand them across different geographies and products.

Our competitive position is enhanced by the unique liquidity provided by our Open Trading functionalities and the integration of our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients with our electronic trading platforms and other systems. We have focused on the unique aspects of the credit markets we serve in the development of our platforms, working closely with our clients to provide a system that is suited to their needs.

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Regulatory Environment

Our business is subject to extensive regulations in the United States and internationally, which may expose us to significant regulatory risk and cause additional legal costs to ensure compliance. The existing legal framework that governs the financial markets is periodically reviewed and amended, resulting in the enactment and enforcement of new laws and regulations that apply to our business. The SEC recently proposed rules that will expand Regulation ATS and Regulation SCI to alternative trading systems (ATS) that trade government securities and amend the SEC rule regarding the definition of an “exchange” to include Communication Protocol Systems, such as our RFQ protocols. Based on these proposed rules, we expect that we will have to operate all of our trading protocols in compliance with Regulation ATS and we could become subject to Regulation SCI for certain parts of our business in the future. The SEC has also adopted final rule amendments that, effective May 2024, will shorten the standard settlement cycle for most broker-dealer securities transactions from two business days after the trade date (T+2) to one business day after the trade date (T+1). The shortening of the settlement cycle will lead to a reduction in the length of exposure to trading counterparties and lower margin requirements for our clearing operations, but it is also expected to increase the operational costs and complexities associated with cross border transactions conducted on our platforms. The SEC also adopted final rules on December 13, 2023 regarding the central clearing of certain secondary market transactions involving U.S. Treasury securities. This central clearing mandate will impact certain of our participants who do not centrally clear such trades today, and some have expressed concerns about the potential impact of additional clearing costs. The impact of any of these reform efforts on us and our operations remains uncertain.

As a result of Brexit, we obtained authorizations from the AFM for our subsidiaries in the Netherlands in 2019. We now provide regulated services to our clients within the E.U. in reliance on the cross-border services passport held by our Dutch subsidiaries. Brexit has led to an ongoing divergence between the U.K. and E.U. financial regulations, which has made it more difficult and costly to comply with the extensive government regulation to which we are subject. The cost and complexity of operating across increasingly divergent regulatory regimes has increased and is likely to continue to increase in the future.

Compliance with regulations may require us to dedicate additional financial and operational resources, which may adversely affect our profitability. For example, DORA, which will become applicable to portions of our business in 2025, will require us to dedicate additional financial and operational resources to meet the significant additional ICT-related governance, risk management, resilience testing and sub-contracting requirements created by the legislation. However, we also believe new regulations may increase demand for our platforms and we believe we are well positioned to benefit from those regulatory changes that cause market participants to seek electronic trading platforms that meet the various regulatory requirements and help them comply with their regulatory obligations.

For further description of the regulations which govern our business, see Part I, Item 1. “Business—Government Regulation.”

Technology Environment

We must continue to enhance and improve our electronic trading platforms. The electronic financial services industry is characterized by increasingly complex systems and infrastructures and new business models. Our future success will depend on our ability to enhance our existing products and services, develop and/or license new products and technologies that address the increasingly sophisticated and varied needs of our existing and prospective broker-dealer and institutional investor clients and respond to technological advances and emerging industry and regulatory standards and practices on a cost-effective and timely basis. For example, in 2023, we introduced MarketAxess X-Pro, our new trading platform, which provides traders with a flexible user experience, intuitive workflows and access to our proprietary data and pre-trade analytics. We plan to continue to focus on technology infrastructure initiatives and improving our platforms with the goal of further enhancing our leading market position.

As the overall share of electronic trading grows in global credit products, we are experiencing continued demand for, and growth in, our automated and algorithmic trading solutions. We also support a large and growing base of dealer market making algorithms. In 2023, trading volumes in our automated trading protocols rose to $303.3 billion, up 37.8% from $220.2 billion in 2022. There were 204 active client firms using our automated and algorithmic trading protocols in 2023, up 25.9% from 2022. In 2023, there were 32.5 million dealer algorithmic responses on our platforms, up 37.0% from 2022.

We experience cybersecurity threats and incidents from time to time. However, as of the date of this report, MarketAxess has not experienced a cybersecurity threat or incident that has materially affected the Company in at least the past three years. Cybersecurity incidents could impact revenue and operating income and increase costs. We therefore continue to make investments in our cybersecurity infrastructure and training of employees, which may result in increased costs, to strengthen our cybersecurity measures.

See also Part I, Item 1A. - “Risk Factors, Technology, IT Systems and Cybersecurity Risks” and Part I, Item 1C – “Cybersecurity.”

Trends in Our Business

The majority of our revenue is derived from commissions for transactions executed on our platforms between and among our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients and monthly distribution fees. We believe that the following are the key variables that impact the notional value of such transactions on our platforms and the amount of commissions and distribution fees earned by us:

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the number of participants on our platforms and their willingness to use our platforms instead of competitors' platforms or other execution methods;

•
the frequency and competitiveness of the price responses by participants on our platforms;

•
the number of markets that are available for our clients to trade on our platforms;

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the overall level of activity in these markets;

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the duration of the bonds trading on our platforms; and

•
the particular fee plan under which we earn commissions and distribution fees.

We believe that overall corporate bond market trading volume is affected by various factors including the absolute levels of interest rates, the direction of interest rate movements, the level of new issues of corporate bonds and the volatility of corporate bond spreads versus U.S. Treasury securities. Because a significant percentage of our revenue is tied directly to the volume of securities traded on our platforms, it is likely that a general decline in trading volumes, regardless of the cause of such decline, would reduce our revenues and have a significant negative impact on profitability.

As further described under “— Critical Factors Affecting our Industry and our Company — Economic, Political and Market Factors” and “— Results of Operations — Year Ended December 31, 2023 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2022”, in 2023, our trading volumes and our average variable transaction fee per million decreased.

Components of Our Results of Operations

Commission Revenue

Commissions are recognized on a trade date basis, are generally calculated as a percentage of the notional dollar volume of bonds traded on our platforms and vary based on the type, size, yield and maturity of the bond traded, as well as individual client incentives. Bonds that are more actively traded or that have shorter maturities are generally charged lower commissions, while bonds that are less actively traded or that have longer maturities generally command higher commissions.

For Open Trading trades that we execute between and among institutional investor and broker-dealer clients on a matched principal basis by serving as counterparty to both the buyer and the seller, we earn our commission through the difference in price between the two trades. For the majority of U.S. Treasury matched principal trades, commissions are invoiced and recorded on a monthly basis.

Credit Commissions. Credit includes U.S. high-grade corporate bonds, high-yield bonds, emerging markets bonds, Eurobonds, municipal bonds and leveraged loans. Our U.S. high-grade corporate bond fee plans generally incorporate variable transaction fees and fixed distribution fees billed to our broker-dealer clients on a monthly basis. Certain broker-dealers participate in fee programs that do not contain monthly distribution fees and instead incorporate additional per transaction execution fees and minimum monthly fee commitments. Under these fee plans, we electronically add the transaction fee to the spread quoted by the broker-dealer client. The U.S. high-grade transaction fee is generally designated in basis points in yield and, as a result, is subject to fluctuation depending on the duration of the bond traded.

Commissions for high-yield bonds, emerging markets bonds, Eurobonds, municipal bonds and leveraged loans generally vary based on the type of the instrument traded using standard fee schedules. Our high-yield fee plan structure is similar to our U.S. high-grade fee plans. Certain dealers participate in a high-yield fee plan that incorporates a variable transaction fee and a fixed distribution fee, while other dealers participate in a plan that does not contain monthly distribution fees and instead incorporates additional per transaction execution fees and minimum monthly fee commitments.

The average credit fees per million may vary in the future due to changes in yield, years-to-maturity and nominal size of high-grade bonds traded on our platforms and changes in product mix or trading protocols.

Credit distribution fees include any unused monthly fee commitments under our variable fee plans.

Rates Commissions. Rates includes U.S. Treasury, U.S. agency and European government bonds. Commissions for rates products generally vary based on the type of the instrument traded. U.S. Treasury fee plans are typically volume tiered and can vary based on the trading protocol. The average rates fee per million may vary in the future due to changes in product mix or trading protocols.

We anticipate that average fees per million may change in the future. Consequently, past trends in credit and rates commissions are not necessarily indicative of future commissions.

Other Commissions. Other commissions includes equities and foreign exchange commissions for Pragma's algorithmic trading services. Commissions for equities are volume-tiered and consist of variable transaction fees billed monthly, while commissions for foreign exchange generally incorporate variable transaction fees and fixed distribution fees that are billed monthly.

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Information Services

We generate revenue from data licensed to our broker-dealer clients, institutional investor clients and data-only subscribers; professional and consulting services; technology software licenses; and maintenance and support services. These revenues are either for subscription-based services transferred over time, and may be net of volume-based discounts, or one-time services. Revenues for services transferred over time are recognized ratably over the contract period while revenues for services transferred at a point in time are recognized in the period the services are provided. Customers are generally billed monthly, quarterly, or annually; revenues billed in advance are deferred and recognized ratably over the contract period.

Post-trade Services

We generate revenue from regulatory transaction reporting, trade publication and post-trade matching services. Customers are generally billed in the current month or monthly in arrears and revenue is recognized in the period that the transactions are processed. Revenues billed in advance are deferred and recognized ratably over the contract period. We also generate one-time implementation fees for onboarding clients which are invoiced and recognized in the period the implementation is complete.

Technology Services

Technology services includes technology services revenue generated by Pragma and revenue generated from telecommunications line charges to broker-dealer clients.

Expenses

In the normal course of business, we incur the following expenses:

Employee Compensation and Benefits. Employee compensation and benefits is our most significant expense and includes employee salaries, stock-based compensation costs, other incentive compensation, employee benefits and payroll taxes.

Depreciation and Amortization. We depreciate our computer hardware and related software, office hardware and furniture and fixtures and amortize our capitalized software development costs on a straight-line basis over three to seven years. We amortize leasehold improvements on a straight-line basis over the lesser of the life of the improvement or the remaining term of the lease. Intangible assets with definite lives, including purchased technologies, customer relationships and other intangible assets, are amortized over their estimated useful lives, which range from one to 15 years, using either a straight-line or accelerated amortization method based on the pattern of economic benefit that we expect to realize from such assets. Intangible assets are assessed for impairment when events or circumstances indicate a possible impairment.

Technology and Communications. Technology and communications expense consists primarily of costs relating to software and licenses, maintenance on software and hardware, cloud hosting costs, data feeds provided by outside vendors, U.S. government bonds technology platform licensing fees, data center hosting costs and our internal network connections. The majority of our broker-dealer clients have dedicated high-speed communication lines to our network in order to provide fast data transfer. We charge our broker-dealer clients a monthly fee for these connections, which is recovered against the relevant expenses we incur.

Professional and Consulting Fees. Professional and consulting fees consist primarily of accounting fees, legal fees and fees paid to information technology and other consultants for services provided for the maintenance of our trading platforms, information and post-trade services products and other services.

Occupancy. Occupancy costs consist primarily of office and equipment rent, utilities and commercial rent tax.

Marketing and Advertising. Marketing and advertising expense consists primarily of branding and other advertising expenses we incur to promote our products and services. This expense also includes costs associated with attending or exhibiting at industry-sponsored seminars, conferences and conventions, and travel and entertainment expenses incurred by our sales force to promote our trading platforms, information services and post-trade services.

Clearing Costs. Clearing costs consist of fees that we are charged by third-party clearing brokers and depositories for the clearing and settlement of matched principal trades, regulatory reporting fees and variable transaction fees assessed by the provider of our third-party middle office system.

General and Administrative. General and administrative expense consists primarily of general travel and entertainment, board of directors’ expenses, regulatory fees, media subscription costs, charitable contributions, provision for doubtful accounts, various state franchise and U.K. value-added taxes and other miscellaneous expenses.

Expenses may continue to grow in the future, notably in employee compensation and benefits as we increase headcount to support investment in new products, operational support and geographic expansion, depreciation and amortization due to increased investment in new products and enhancements to our trading platforms, and technology and communication costs. Expenses may also grow due to increased regulatory complexity, acquisitions or the continued effects of inflation.

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Other Income (Expense)

Interest Income. Interest income consists of interest income earned on our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, deposits and investments.

Interest Expense. Interest expense consists of financing charges incurred on short-term borrowings.

Equity in Earnings of Unconsolidated Affiliate. Equity in earnings of unconsolidated affiliate represents the proportionate share of our equity method investee's net income.

Other, Net. Other, net consists of realized and unrealized gains and losses on trading security investments and foreign currency forward contracts, foreign currency transaction gains or losses, investment advisory fees, credit facility administrative fees, gains or losses on revaluations of contingent consideration payable and other miscellaneous revenues and expenses.

Critical Accounting Estimates

This Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations discusses our Consolidated Financial Statements, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (“GAAP”). The preparation of these financial statements requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and the reported amounts of income and expenses during the reporting periods. We base our estimates and judgments on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances. Actual results may differ from these estimates under varying assumptions or conditions. Critical accounting estimates for us include stock-based compensation.

Stock-based compensation

We maintain the MarketAxess Holdings Inc. 2020 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2020 Plan”) which provides for the grant of stock options, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock, performance shares, performance units, restricted stock units, performance stock units, or other stock-based awards as incentives to encourage employees, consultants and non-employee directors to participate in our long-term success. We make critical accounting estimates related to performance shares and performance stock units granted under the 2020 Plan.

In 2021, 2022 and 2023, annual performance-based equity awards (collectively, the “Performance Equity Awards”) were granted to the executive officers and certain senior managers. Each Performance Equity Award is earned or forfeited based on our level of achievement of certain predetermined metrics, including pre-tax adjusted operating margin and market share for the 2021 awards, and pre-tax adjusted operating margin, U.S. credit market share, and revenue growth excluding U.S. credit for the 2022 and 2023 awards. The vested share pay-out ranges from zero to 200% of the Performance Equity Award target. The number of Performance Equity Awards that vest, if any, is determined by the level of achievement of the performance metrics during the three-year performance periods, as certified by the Compensation and Talent Committee following the conclusion of the performance period. In addition, participants must provide continued service through the vesting date, subject to death, disability and qualified retirement exceptions, as applicable. Compensation expense for the Performance Equity Awards is measured using the fair value of our stock at the grant date and estimates of future performance and actual share payouts. Each period, we make estimates of the current expected share payouts and adjust the life-to-date compensation expense recognized since the grant date. As of December 31, 2023, a 10.0% change in the expected final share payouts would increase or decrease the life-to-date compensation expense by $1.3 million. The estimated final share payouts for the 2021 and 2022 awards as of December 31, 2023 decreased 34.6% compared to December 31, 2022.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

See Note 2 for a discussion of any recent accounting pronouncements relevant to our Consolidated Financial Statements.

Segment Results

We operate electronic platforms for the trading of fixed-income securities and provide related data, analytics, compliance tools and post-trade services. We consider our operations to constitute a single business segment because of the highly integrated nature of these products and services, the financial markets in which we compete and our worldwide business activities. We believe that results by geographic region or client sector are not necessarily meaningful in understanding our business. See Note 16 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for certain geographic information about our business required by GAAP.

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Results of Operations

Year Ended December 31, 2023 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2022

The following table summarizes our financial results for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022:

Changes in average foreign currency exchange rates compared to the U.S. dollar had the effect of increasing revenues and expenses by $0.9 million and $1.1 million, respectively, for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022.

Revenues

Our revenues for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

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Commissions

Our commission revenues for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

Credit variable transaction fees increased by $4.3 million, driven by a 6.2% increase in trading volume, partially offset by a 5.0% decrease in total credit average variable transaction fee per million. Open Trading credit volume totaled $955.6 billion during the year ended December 31, 2023, up 1.7%, and Open Trading credit variable transaction fees represented 33.9% and 33.7% of total variable transaction fees for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Rates variable transaction fees decreased by $1.6 million, driven principally by a 14.5% decrease in trading volumes, partially offset by an 8.8% increase in average variable transaction fee per million. Other variable transaction fees include equities and foreign exchange commissions earned by Pragma.

Credit fixed distribution fees increased $13.8 million mainly due to new dealers on fixed distribution fee plans and certain dealers moving to plans with higher fixed distribution fees.

Our trading volumes for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 were as follows:

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For volume reporting purposes, transactions in foreign currencies are converted to U.S. dollars at average monthly rates.

The 6.8% increase in our U.S. high-grade volume was principally due to an increase in estimated market volumes, partially offset by a decrease in our estimated market share. Estimated U.S. high-grade market volume as reported by TRACE increased by 11.7% to $7.2 trillion for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the year ended December 31, 2022. Our estimated market share of total U.S. high-grade corporate bond volume decreased to 20.4% for the year ended December 31, 2023 from 21.3% for the year ended December 31, 2022. Our high-yield volume decreased by 6.2% due to decreases in our estimated market share and estimated market volumes. Our emerging markets volumes increased by 3.5%, mainly due to an increase in local markets trading volumes. Eurobond volumes increased by 21.6%, mainly due to increases in estimated market volumes and our estimated market share. Other credit volumes increased 13.3%, mainly due to an increase in our estimated municipal bond market share. Rates trading volume decreased 14.5%, primarily due to a decrease in our estimated market share.

Our average variable transaction fee per million for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022 was as follows:

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Credit average variable transaction fee per million decreased by 5.0% to $158.61 per million for the year ended December 31, 2023, mainly due to a decrease in the duration of U.S. high-grade bonds traded on our platforms and product mix-shift in other credit products. Rates average variable transaction fee per million increased 8.8% mainly due to product mix-shift in rates products.

Information Services. Information services revenue increased by $7.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, mainly due to net new data contract revenue of $7.4 million offset by the negative impact of foreign currency fluctuations of $0.3 million.

Post-Trade Services. Post-trade services revenue increased by $3.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, principally due to net new contract revenue of $3.7 million offset by the negative impact of foreign currency fluctuations of $0.4 million.

Technology Services. Technology services revenue increased by $2.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2023 due to technology services revenue generated by Pragma.

Expenses

The following table summarizes our expenses for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022: