Jo Gallagher, Trader TV: Welcome to Trader TV, your insight into institutional trading. I'm Jo Gallagher. Today I'm joined by AJ Cass and Mary Beth Sweeney at LTX to discuss how generative AI solutions are transforming the desk. Welcome to the show. 

AJ Cass, LTX: Great to be here. Thank you. 

Mary Beth Sweeney, LTX: Thank you for having us. 

AJ Cass: I think the current trading environment, certainly for 2024, has been relatively healthy. Yes, we are at a place with higher yields for a little longer than most folks thought, but the environment has been very well supported by yield buyers and yield buyers for longer. But I think the strongest point around trading this year has been received from the new issue market. So new issues as of the end of April are almost $750 billion in new issuance. And that's between IG and high yield. And that's up about 38% year over year. We're also seeing daily volumes up well over 40 billion. And ticket count averages are up to about 32% higher than last year at this time. So with this ever growing amount of issuance and higher volume and more trading activity, it's creating larger and larger data sets and data points. What we've heard from both our buy side clients and sell side clients is: I need tools to help me manage all of this data. I need tools that are bigger, faster, stronger, but most importantly, tools that are easy to use and fit in with my workflow.

 Jo Gallagher: What changes are you seeing in the way traders use data and analytics? 

AJ Cass: So a year ago, when we first launched our genAI tool BondGPT, the concerns most people had were about usage. Are the models taking my data to train? Do I have any control over my data leakage? I think we're now at a place where we're seeing a much greater level of comfort and acceptance. We provide a pretty wide mix of data sets, whether that's pricing, bond characteristics. We have a bunch of models in there. We pull from 10-Ks and 10-Qs. So our clients are very happy with the data sets we provide. But just to let you know how far the pendulum has swung, we've now come to a place where our clients are asking us if they can contribute their data. We've seen more of that from the buy side, and they're willing to contribute things like portfolio characteristics, their recommended lists, their restricted list overlaid with their compliance. So just think about the change we've seen in one year. It's from a relatively difficult time accepting using these tools inside of their workflow. And now that fear is pretty much shifted towards: am I going to be left behind by not using these AI tools? 

Jo Gallagher: Where trading desk maturity most rapidly in their use of innovative services such as AI? 

Mary Beth Sweeney: Well, I would say that AI tools have been around for a long time in the marketplace, but what we're seeing is the evolution of those tools being used in the trading workflow. From the inception of LTX, we have a number of different AI tools, such as similar bonds, relative value models, even liquidity scores. But what we've seen with the introduction of our large language model on GPT is that introduction and that weaving of the AI tools into the trader's workflow. 

AJ Cass: Let's say I was sitting in the role of a portfolio manager, and I know I needed to fill a hole in my portfolio. So I would query BondGPT and say I’m looking for an A rated TMT bond with a spread greater than +200, at least 10 years to maturity, I want to make sure the bond is index eligible, and, by the way, from a company that produces more than $5 billion in revenue. BondGPT will produce a list of CUSIPs that match that criteria, you’ll get a liquidity profile of those bonds with your counterparties, with the dealers you trade with. And depending upon the liquidity of the bond, you could right-click and send an order directly to each dealer or run an RFQ off the back of the inquiry. 

Jo Gallagher: And what's coming down the line for LTX later this year? 

Mary Beth Sweeney: Over the last couple of months, we've been engaging with our clients about the next protocol that we should be adding to our toolkit. And we're continuing to develop innovative trading protocols in combination with our AI offerings. So I'm most excited to be overlaying our AI offering like BondGPT over our trading protocols such as list. So this summer, we'll be giving users the tools that they need to generate a list of CUSIPs by asking BondGPT a number of queries or a complicated query, and quickly translating that into the construction and execution of a list, understanding that seamless workflow is a key driver for our clients. Our BondGPT product has grown so quickly through client feedback. Through this feedback, we've added 30+ growth enhancements throughout this year alone. We're hearing a ton of important input from our live POCs, and we continue to grow the data set expansions, use cases, and I have no doubt that the list will continue to grow.

Jo Gallagher: AJ, Mary Beth, thank you for your insight. This has been Trader TV.