2025 e-Trading insights: What’s top of mind for institutional traders?

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Patrick Whelan: Hi, you're listening to Market Matters on J.P. Morgan's Making Sense. I'm Patrick Whelan, head of FICC Digital Markets at J.P. Morgan. In today's episode, we explore the latest insights from our annual e-Trading Edit survey. And joining me is Gergana Thiel, the global co-head of Macro Sales. We're excited to delve into the key themes and predictions that are gonna shape the future of trading in 2025. Thanks for joining me, Gergana.

Gergana Thiel: Thank you Patrick, and thank all of you who have dialed in for this episode on Market Matters. I'm looking forward to discussing the results of our survey and what they mean for our clients and for the industry.

Patrick Whelan: So yeah, let's start with the survey background for a minute. This is the ninth year we've conducted the e-Trading Edit, and it's grown to one of the largest institutional surveys across our industry. This year we had a record number of participants with over 4,200 clients participating from 60 locations around the globe, providing a comprehensive view across all asset classes. Gergana, why do you think the survey is so important to market participants and especially to our clients?

Gergana Thiel: Patrick, just as you mentioned, this is a very broad survey. This is a survey that reaches many clients, a very, uh, diversified set of participants, and it really gives us a holistic view on market sentiment and what people feel is central to their trading agenda, to their trading views. On our side, a survey like that helps us understand the client's needs better, the client's expectations, and also it helps us tailor our strategy and our ability to deliver the J.P. Morgan platform to clients better.

Patrick Whelan: Now, we both work in global markets and one of the key questions we ask every year is what will have the biggest impact on those markets in 2025? This year's survey produced some interesting insights as it always does, with inflation and tariffs coming out on top. Did you find this surprising?

Gergana Thiel: Well, the survey was taken between the 9th of January and the 23rd of January, so it does not surprise me that 51% of the participants thought that tariffs and inflation will be two of the central risks or two of the, the central spots for the market to focus on. Having said that, there are other nuances and there are other topics that people discussed. I would say rising cost is an issue and people care about that. Need of, uh, seeing more detail around the trade policies is something that people expect to see and, and are focused on. But on the flip side of inflation and tariffs, and on a more positive note, we see emerging optimism. We see people pricing out the risk of recession from 18% to 7%.

Patrick Whelan: That's a big change year over year from where we were last year versus this year. Another interesting insight that we had from the survey this year was one that we ask the institutional traders that participate is what they think the biggest daily trading challenge will be for them in 2025. Volatile markets remains the top predicted challenge once more for traders in this category, but it did increase significantly from 28% in '24 to 41% of respondents in 2025, seeing it as a challenge that will have a big impact this year. You've mentioned the importance of being a reliable partner in any market condition to our clients. Can you expand on that a little bit more and what that means in terms of the, the survey results that we saw this year?

Gergana Thiel: Volatile markets, as you mentioned, are a real concern because volatility, disruption leads to big moves, a lot of uncertainty, and those are the times when clients need us the most. Those are the times where we are central to our clients providing stability, continuity, the trust that exists, uh, helps us really bring innovative solutions, and through the J.P. Morgan platform, deliver liquidity and advice and guidance to our clients during that period of time. So I think that you are spot-on when you say that reliability is so key, especially during that time. One thing I would say is that technology is what helps us do all of these things. And since you, in your position, you're so central to all the conversations about technology that happen with clients, do you echo these comments?

Patrick Whelan: Absolutely. I think one of the great things about the survey is being able to bounce the same ideas off a large group of people and see what they see as being the most influential factors from their perspective, especially in terms of technology trends, and obviously in 2025, AI and machine learning came out on top once again, but I do feel like within J.P. Morgan, we've invested a lot in that space already. We still continue to invest there and we, we're looking to leverage the data we have to drive more of efficiencies and automate more of our processes. I think we're still learning about how we can create commercial value through the use of LLM and large-scale AI efforts across the the firm. But I do feel like in '25 and '26 and into '27, we're gonna see more of that coming, coming into the day-to-day of both our sales traders and clients. Beyond AI and machine learning, it was also interesting to see once again, and it was a hundred percent of respondents saying that they expect e-trading to grow in 2025. It's a large number of participants to all say the same thing. It was the only part of the survey that we had a hundred percent agreement on, and so it was also interesting that like they were pointing to EM rates and credit as being two of the areas that will continue to grow in terms of electronification in in 2025. Those are two areas that we're investing in as well. From a J.P. Morgan perspective, we're obviously trying to be there for our clients as well as they look to leverage some of the solutions that are becoming available, and obviously continuing to expand our e-trading offering across the world is a key priority for us. We also look to develop some new innovative solutions as we continue to expand our e-trading offering. That allows us to provide more robust direct API solutions across asset classes where we can connect directly with our clients, as well as enhancing our offering on our single dealer platform, Execute. You know, with clients also highlighting the fact that reducing brokerage and execution costs is an important focus area for 2025, these types of solutions allow us to provide more competitive pricing, better analytics and ultimately reduce information leakage as clients choose to leverage some of the solutions that we're able to put out there and ultimately address some of their key concerns that they've, they've highlighted once more in in this survey, but we still have a long way to go. Like everything, it's always a little bit like that in technology, but it's good to see the trends and predictions are continuing to, to stay focused on delivering some of those.

Gergana Thiel: Absolutely. But staying on that topic, real-time data and analytics comes up very often in our conversations on the sales side with the clients. It's something that has become now so central to the investment process and the way clients engage with the market, with the opportunities that the market presents. Do you think that we are doing enough? Are you looking forward in, in seeing some other products and opportunities ahead of us?

Patrick Whelan: Look, we can always be doing more, but it's one of those things that we continue to invest in, and I think there's definitely a continued need for more of it. Working with large data sets and providing real time data both to our sales and traders as well as to our clients, is a continued focus. And obviously in certain asset classes, it's much more highly developed and we have a lot more data available to us. I think in some of the, in some of the ones that are still on the kind of electronic-ification journey, it's a bit harder, and so we have to come up with more innovative analytics that clients are looking for. We have to leverage the data sets that we have and obviously make them available in a way that people can consume easily, ideally visually as well as via API so that they have access to what they need when they need it. But like all things, it's, it's still a work in progress and so we still have a little bit more to go, I suppose from your side, you obviously talked to clients a lot as well on, on a number of topics. Is there anything else that you saw in the, in the survey?

Gergana Thiel: Look, I think that we touched on all the key takeaways, and in addition to that, it gave us a really comprehensive map of some of the offerings, some of the key and most interesting developments that are happening in that space. So I thought that we should finish this conversation with three words that we each have and trying to predict 2025, from what we've seen in the survey and a little bit from what we expect ourselves. So maybe you start. Three words?

Patrick Whelan: Excellent question. My three words would be data, connectivity, and growth. Data -- we've already touched upon, it's a critical role in decision-making. Connectivity -- as we enhance our digital platforms, and growth -- as we continue to see opportunities emerging in various sectors for continued e-trading expansion.

Gergana Thiel: Well, you got all the good words.

Patrick Whelan: (laughs)

Gergana Thiel: My three would be tariffs, technology and the U.S. dollar. At the start of this conversation, we touched upon it, but tariffs are going to be central for the new opportunity set and, and going ahead this year. Technology is ever so central and we really elaborated on that, and the U.S. dollar, I think the U.S. dollar is something that that is, uh, showing us the pulse of the market at the moment and, and the sentiment.

Patrick Whelan: Excellent choices as well. So certainly looking forward to seeing some of those play out in 2025. Thanks for joining me today.

Gergana Thiel: Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. Thank you all for all of the listeners who have dialed in to all of our clients, and stay informed. Stay strong. Goodbye.

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