isintermediation. By providing a means for natural buyers and sellers to meet without a market intermediary, electronic trading technology has a great potential to disintermediate markets. In the equity side, the prime example is the ECNs, which now account for at least 30% of Nasdaq trading. Some question whether dealers will eventually be relegated to trading only the least liquid stocks, where their proprietary capital is still vital to maintaining a market in those stocks.
Industry analysts have pointed out that advances in trading software are making it easier to categorize and match types of bonds. Will the fixed-income markets eventually become segmented into two categories: (1) commoditized "plain vanilla" instruments that lend themselves to being traded electronically; and (2) the more complex ones that require intermediaries? While transaction services in most bonds aren’t in immediate danger of becoming commoditized, it’s a question worth paying attention to going forward.
But the current example on everyone’s mind of potential disintermediation on the fixed-income side is the City of Pittsburgh’s plan to sell its municipal bonds over the Internet. It is way too early to tell whether this represents the first step in a shift in how municipal bonds will be sold.
However, Pittsburgh’s move does point out something very important about e-commerce. Its nature is to ruthlessly search out and present alternatives to transactions involving intermediaries. The Internet’s transparency and broad reach exposes intermediaries that do not add value. Going forward, fixed-income market intermediaries continually will have to prove their value to clients, or risk being left in the dust by technology.