Marketaxess Holdings Inc: Form 10-K for the period ended Dec 31, 2025

Overview

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (the “Company” or “MarketAxess”) operates leading electronic trading platforms delivering greater trading efficiency, a diversified pool of liquidity and significant cost savings to approximately 2,100 institutional investor and broker-dealer clients across the global fixed-income and other markets. We have built a differentiated market position through our integrated approach to electronic trading, combining diverse trading protocols, automated and algorithmic execution solutions, intelligent data products and analytics and comprehensive post-trade and technology services. The fixed-income markets we focus on remain significantly less electronified than other asset classes, creating significant opportunities for continued growth.

We believe our scale, network effects, and product innovation uniquely position us to capture increased trading volumes as the market continues its transition from voice to electronic trading. At the center of our offerings is Open Trading®, our award winning all-to-all marketplace, which creates a unique, anonymous liquidity pool that connects market participants across a broad range of fixed-income products. By expanding the number of potential trading counterparties, we believe that Open Trading facilitates price discovery, improves execution quality, and reduces transaction costs for market participants. Institutional investors can also send trading inquiries directly to broker-dealer counterparties on a disclosed basis, while simultaneously accessing the rest of the market on an anonymous basis through Open Trading.

We continue to invest in technology innovation. Our next-generation trading platform, MarketAxess X-Pro (“X-Pro”), provides access to multiple trading protocols and workflow tools and integrates our suite of proprietary pre- and post-trade data and analytics tools, powered by our AI-driven pricing engine, CP+, to deliver a seamless user experience. Our automated execution protocols enable clients to pre-define trading parameters and leverage automation to execute transactions seamlessly and efficiently, reducing manual intervention and allowing traders to focus on higher-value opportunities.

In 2025, 86.8% of our revenues were derived from commissions for transactions executed on our platforms. We also derive revenues from 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 History

MarketAxess has been an innovative leader in electronic trading since its founding in 2000. Throughout our history, our primary goals have remained the same: improve trading efficiency and deliver meaningful transaction price improvement for our clients. Prior to our founding, our institutional investor clients were able to trade bonds by telephone with a limited set of broker-dealers with which they had institutional relationships. By 2007, our platforms enabled institutional investors to trade electronically with over thirty broker-dealers. During the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, we significantly expanded the number of non-primary and regional dealers providing liquidity on our platforms, as many dealers were forced to reduce their balance sheets for market making. In 2013, we launched Open Trading, which today provides an expanded liquidity pool for approximately 1,800 global market participants to trade a wide variety of fixed-income securities with each other. In 2023, we furthered our automated and algorithmic trading capabilities through our acquisition of Pragma LLC and Pragma Financial Systems LLC (collectively, “Pragma”). In 2025, we completed our acquisition of a majority stake in RFQ-hub Holdings LLC (“RFQ-hub”), a bilateral multi-asset and multi-dealer RFQ platform designed for the exchange traded fund (“ETF”) and derivatives markets.

Our Competitive Strengths

We believe that we are well positioned to strengthen our market position in electronic trading in our existing products and to extend our presence into new products and services by capitalizing on our competitive strengths, including:

Deep and Differentiated Liquidity Pool Comprised of Leading Institutional Investors, Broker-Dealers and Other Market Participants

Our electronic trading platforms provide access to a deep and differentiated liquidity pool comprised of institutional investors, broker-dealers and other market participants. Our platforms have achieved strong adoption rates with our institutional investor clients because they are able to transact with substantially all of the leading broker-dealers and other liquidity providers in fixed-income trading, as well as with each other through our Open Trading marketplace. This liquidity pool creates powerful network effects through deeper liquidity, tighter spreads and improved execution quality. We believe that our broker-dealer clients are incentivized to use our platforms due to the ability to efficiently transact with valuable client order flow and the ability to use our Open Trading protocols to help manage their risk, source liquidity and facilitate transactions on behalf of their clients. Approximately 91.3% of the credit volume on our platforms during 2025 was initiated by institutional clients with the remaining 8.7% of the credit volume conducted between dealers.

Open Trading Differentiates our Platforms by Expanding the Liquidity Pool and Driving Price Improvement for Institutional Investors and Broker-Dealers

Open Trading, our proprietary fully electronic, all-to-all trading functionality, provides a leading solution to the liquidity challenges facing fixed-income markets as regulatory capital requirements have reduced broker-dealer market making capacity. Unlike traditional, bilateral trading models, Open Trading participants have broader and more diverse liquidity options with access to an expanded set of potential trading counterparties. This optional expanded pool of liquidity providers includes investment managers, global dealers, regional dealers and specialist market making and proprietary trading firms.

During 2025, approximately 1,800 firms participated in Open Trading, which improved the ability of both dealers and institutional investors to find natural and opportunistic matches, move orders more efficiently and achieve significant increases in execution quality and price improvement.

We believe our Open Trading protocols enhance our institutional investor clients’ ability to obtain competitive pricing by allowing all of our Open Trading participants to interact with each other, thereby increasing the potential sources of liquidity available for each participant, as well as the likelihood of receiving a competitive price response. We estimate that Open Trading generated $496.4 million of price improvement for our clients in 2025, consisting of an estimated $324.9 million of liquidity taker price improvement (defined as the difference between the winning price and the best disclosed dealer cover price) and an estimated $171.6 million of liquidity provider price improvement (defined as the difference between the winning price and then current CP+ bid or offer level, offer if the provider is buying, bid if provider is selling) at the time of the inquiry. This Open Trading price improvement is in addition to the potential cost savings institutional investors can achieve by simultaneously requesting bids or offers from our broker-dealer clients via our traditional disclosed RFQ protocol. In addition, dealers use Open Trading as a source of liquidity to efficiently transfer risk and achieve enhanced bond inventory turnover, which may limit their credit exposure.

Advanced End-to-End Technology

Our electronic trading platforms utilize a secure and scalable architecture that leverages distributed computing to achieve speed and reliability. Our technology provides clients with end-to-end and customizable connectivity to fixed-income markets. X-Pro, our next-generation platform, enhances the trading experience by providing traders with a flexible user interface, intuitive workflows and easy access to our proprietary data and pre-trade analytics. To enable more efficient trade execution, we offer several automated and algorithmic trading solutions, which allow clients to set eligibility criteria for their orders that our platforms use to automatically execute trades in accordance with pre-defined parameters. We believe that these automated and algorithmic trading solutions reduce trading inefficiencies and human errors while allowing traders to focus on higher-value trades.

In addition to services directly related to the execution of trades, we also offer our clients several other pre- and post-trade services. In the pre-trade period, our platforms assist participants with price discovery by providing them with real-time pricing and historical trade data analytics. Following the execution of a trade, our platforms support all of the essential tools and functionalities to enable our participants to achieve straight through processing (“STP”) for trade settlement and to measure transaction costs to evidence best execution.

We continue to significantly invest in our resiliency, scalability and risk management systems, while continuing product delivery with approximately 1,000 unique new business and technical features during the year ended December 31, 2025.

Growing, Comprehensive International Client Base and Offering

MarketAxess operates a leading global electronic fixed-income trading network, connecting clients across approximately 90 countries. Our international client base has grown to over 1,000 active client firms located outside the U.S. Our Open Trading functionality allows international clients to access cross-border liquidity more efficiently with few regulatory hurdles.

In addition to growing our client base internationally, MarketAxess has become a leading marketplace for eurobonds and emerging market debt. For example, the MarketAxess emerging markets trading platform offers the most comprehensive offering for local currency bond trading across the Latin America, Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific (“APAC”) regions. Our platforms provide clients with access to trade emerging market local currency debt denominated in 30 local currencies with approximately 200 broker-dealers. Collectively, eurobonds and emerging markets debt represented 40.5% of our total credit average daily volumes (“ADV”) in 2025, up from 32.7% in 2020.

Proprietary Data and Analytical Tools Supporting Increased Automation of Trading Workflows

Our proprietary data and analytical tools enhance the value proposition of our trading platforms and improve the trading experience of our clients. We support our clients’ trading functions by offering value-added analytics that rely on machine-learning, automation and algorithms that are designed to improve the trading decisions and workflows of our clients. For example, we believe that our automation solutions enable more efficient execution of smaller trades, and allow traders to instead focus their attention on larger, and often higher-value, trades. With respect to these larger and higher-value trades, such as block-sized trades, we have introduced an AI-driven dealer selection tool, which predicts which counterparties are most likely to provide competitive pricing.

Our Strategy

Our objective is to create, maintain and expand the leading global electronic network for the trading of fixed-income securities that enables institutional investors, broker-dealers and other market participants to connect, operate more efficiently and achieve better trading outcomes. We seek to achieve this goal by offering our clients comprehensive end-to-end electronic trading solutions and workflow tools, powered by our proprietary data and analytical tools. We are focused on executing our strategy across our three complementary channels:

• Client-initiated trading, where institutional investors initiate trades directly with broker-dealers, as well as the entire pool of liquidity providers on our platform via Open Trading;
• Portfolio trading, which enables the efficient execution of large baskets of securities based on one single aggregate price for the transaction; and
• Dealer-initiated trading, where broker-dealers initiate trades to manage risk, source liquidity and facilitate transactions on behalf of their clients.

We are increasingly striving to be “protocol-agnostic” by offering a broad suite of trading protocols and execution tools to meet the needs of our clients’ evolving requirements across market cycles. The key elements of our strategy are:

Increase Penetration in Fixed-Income Markets

We believe that we have a large opportunity remaining to capture additional market share in the fixed-income markets in which we have already established a leadership position. For example, the combined U.S. high grade and U.S. high-yield bond ADV on our platforms for the year ended December 31, 2025 was approximately $8.7 billion, representing just 17.0% of the estimated addressable market of approximately $51.2 billion. The traditional methods of bilateral trading, including the telephone or electronic messaging, continue to be one of our principal competitors in the fixed-income markets in which we have established a leadership position. We continue to focus on capturing additional market share across our core fixed-income markets. We believe that the efficiency and workflow improvements of X-Pro, combined with our powerful proprietary data and analytics, will help increase our market share in our core markets.

We also continue to enhance our automated and algorithmic trading protocols, which enable clients to pre-define trading parameters and leverage automation to execute transactions seamlessly and efficiently, reducing manual intervention and allowing traders to focus on higher-value opportunities. Our targeted RFQ functionality allows users to direct inquiries to selected counterparties, enhancing execution quality and reducing information leakage relative to broader requests. In 2024, we also introduced an AI-driven trading protocol designed to make it easier for our clients to execute block trades. We believe that automation and targeted RFQ will continue to drive an increase in clients executing block trades.

Expand Trading Protocols and Leverage the Open Trading Network

We believe that we are the only fixed-income electronic trading platform that embraces all-to-all trading in each of our core product areas. For both client-initiated and dealer-initiated trades, Open Trading exponentially increases the number of potential trading counterparties by allowing all of our qualified participants, including our broker-dealer clients, institutional investor clients and alternative liquidity providers, to interact in an all-to-all trading environment of approximately 1,800 firms. Our clients executed approximately $1.2 trillion in credit trading volume using Open Trading during 2025, representing 37.0% of total eligible credit trading volume on our platforms, and realized approximately $496.4 million in estimated price improvement through this unique liquidity solution in 2025. We believe that the combination of Open Trading and our vast client network provides the basis for MarketAxess to enhance liquidity and improve market resiliency in global fixed-income markets.

We are also expanding our capabilities in dealer-initiated trading protocols, which allow broker-dealers to initiate trades to manage risk, source liquidity and facilitate transactions on behalf of their clients. In 2024, we launched Mid-X for emerging markets and eurobonds. The Mid-X protocol is designed to provide anonymous mid-point matching sessions for dealers, powered by CP+. In 2025, we expanded Mid-X to U.S. credit.

Continue to Invest in and Grow our Business through Geographic Diversification

We are continuing to expand and diversify our business internationally. Our revenues from international clients have grown from 29.1% of total revenues in 2021 to 32.8% of total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2025. In the last five years, we have seen significant growth in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (“EMEA”), Latin America and APAC regions. The ADV in the EMEA, Latin America and APAC regions on the MarketAxess platforms has grown from $3.3 billion in 2021 to $5.6 billion in 2025. As of December 31, 2025, our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients are based in approximately 90 countries with over 1,000 total active international client firms and approximately 6,000 total active international traders. We offer cross-regional electronic trading services in U.S fixed-income markets for international clients, and are a leading marketplace for eurobonds and emerging market debt. By offering liquidity in both hard-currency and local currency emerging market debt, we have created an efficient emerging market trading ecosystem for all of our channels. For example, we provide Open Trading for emerging market local currency bonds, including for the local currency markets of Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and South Africa, and in 2025, we launched the first fully electronic trading solution for Indian government bonds. We believe we can increase our penetration and revenue opportunities in international markets by continuing to invest in creating client relationships abroad.

Expand Data and Analytical Tools

Our data strategy is centered on using our data offerings to support trading activity through our diverse trading protocols and growing our revenues from our commercial data offerings. We generate proprietary data from the trading activity and order flow on our platforms. We have prioritized the use of this data to power our AI-driven trading solutions and analytical products. We believe this approach has positioned us to capture higher long-term value by leveraging our proprietary data to enhance our trading solutions and strengthen the integrated value proposition of our platforms. We continue to expand our data product offerings as participants seek additional pre-trade analytics, automated execution, transaction cost analysis and post-trade solutions. For example, in 2024 we expanded CP+ , our real-time pricing engine, to include municipal bonds. We also seek to develop new strategic data partnerships to increase the distribution of our data products. For example, in 2024, we partnered with S&P Global Market Intelligence to integrate S&P Global Bond Reference Data into our suite of data products and include CP+ real-time pricing in S&P Global’s Evaluated Bond Pricing. In 2025, we partnered with FactSet to provide CP+ real-time data within the FactSet Workstation platform and datafeeds, giving FactSet users including asset managers, hedge funds, wealth advisors and institutional traders in-terminal access to CP+ bond pricing data.

Pursue Select Acquisitions and Strategic Alliances and Expand into New Product Areas

We continually evaluate opportunities to supplement our internal growth by entering into strategic alliances, or acquiring businesses or technologies, that we believe will enable us to enter new markets, provide new client segments, new products or services, or otherwise expand our market share in the fixed-income markets that we operate in today. We also leverage our automation and Open Trading functionalities, and our experience of building market share in markets like U.S high-grade and U.S. high-yield bonds, to increase our product footprint in newer product areas, including emerging market local currency bonds, municipal bonds, U.S. government bonds and European government bonds. For example, in 2025, we completed our acquisition of a majority stake in RFQ-hub, a bilateral multi-asset and multi-dealer RFQ platform designed for the ETF and derivatives markets. In 2023, we acquired Pragma, expanding our automated and algorithmic trading solutions to equities and foreign exchange. We believe that we will be able to enhance our capabilities and increase our efficiency by leveraging Pragma technology across our technology stack.

The Fixed-Income Products Available on our Platforms

We operate in a large and growing market, which consists of credit and rates fixed-income products. According to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (“SIFMA”), as of September 30, 2025, the most recent date available, there were approximately $11.5 trillion in principal amount of fixed-income securities outstanding in the U.S. corporate bond market, which reflects a five-year compound annual growth rate of 3.2%. In addition, according to SIFMA, as of December 31, 2025, there were approximately $30.3 trillion in principal amount of fixed-income securities outstanding in the U.S. government bond market, which reflects a five-year compound annual growth rate of 7.6%.

Our proprietary technology allows institutional investor and broker-dealer clients to access this market by trading both credit and rates products on our platforms.

Our credit products consist of the following areas:

• U.S. high-grade bonds, which refers to U.S. corporate debt rated BBB- or better by Standard & Poor’s (“S&P”) or Baa3 or better by Moody’s Investor Service (“Moody’s”);
• U.S. high-yield bonds, which refers to U.S. corporate debt rated lower than BBB- by S&P or Baa3 by Moody’s;
• Emerging market debt, which we define as U.S. dollar, Euro or local currency denominated bonds issued by sovereign entities or corporations domiciled in a developing country, typically located in Latin America, Asia, or Central and Eastern Europe;
• Eurobonds, which we define generally to consist of bonds intended to be distributed to European investors, primarily bonds issued by European corporations, excluding bonds that are issued by corporations domiciled in an emerging markets country and excluding most government bonds that trade in Europe;
• Municipal bonds, which are debt securities issued by states, cities, counties and other governmental entities in the U.S. to fund day-to-day obligations and to finance a wide variety of public projects, such as highways or water systems, and typically offer interest payments that are exempt from federal income taxation and may be exempt from state income and other taxes; and
• Other credit products, including leveraged loans, which are senior secured commercial facilities provided by a syndicate of lenders for below investment-grade companies (credit rating below BBB- or Baa3).

Our rates products consist of the following areas:

• U.S. government bonds, which are government instruments issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury;
• Agency bonds, which are securities issued by a U.S. federal government department or by a government-sponsored enterprise, including the Federal National Mortgage Association and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation; and
• Other government bonds, including European government bonds, which are bonds issued by governments of countries in the European Union (“E.U.”) and non-E.U. European countries, as well as bonds issued by other supranational organizations, agencies and sovereigns, including the European Commission, China and India.

The six largest product areas available on our platform for the year ended December 31, 2025 were U.S. high-grade, U.S. high-yield, emerging market debt, eurobonds, municipal bonds and U.S. government bonds. In the chart below, we show MarketAxess’ ADV and the amount of new issuance of such product areas for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024:

(In billions)

(1) There were 249 and 250 U.S. trading days in each of 2025 and 2024, respectively, based on the SIFMA holiday recommendation calendar and 252 and 253 United Kingdom (“U.K”) trading days in each of 2025 and 2024, respectively, based primarily on the U.K. bank holiday schedule.

(2) For U.S. high-grade and U.S. high-yield, the amount of new issuance is according to J.P. Morgan Markets.

(3) For emerging markets debt, the amount of new issuance is according to J.P. Morgan Markets. The amount of new issuance excludes debt issued by emerging market sovereigns, which are included in our definition of emerging markets debt.

(4) For eurobonds, the amount of new issuance is according to J.P. Morgan Markets and includes high-grade and high-yield Euro denominated bonds.

(5) For municipal bonds and U.S. government bonds, the amount of new issuance is according to SIFMA.

7

We plan to leverage our investments in X-Pro, automation, portfolio trading and block trading, as well as our Open Trading functionality, to capture additional market share across our core fixed-income markets while increasing our footprint in newer product areas. In the chart below, we show estimated market ADV and our estimated market share for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, of U.S. high-grade/high-yield bonds combined, U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, municipal bonds and U.S. government bonds.

(In billions)

(1) For U.S. high-grade and high-yield, market ADV is as measured by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (“TRACE”).

Finally, we believe that the current level of electronic trading in our largest product areas is relatively low, creating a long runway for future market share growth. For example, we estimate that the level of electronic trading as a percentage of all means of trading (referred to as “electronic market share”) for U.S. high-grade bonds and U.S. high-yield bonds is approximately 60.0% and 30.0%, respectively. As a comparison, based on third-party estimates, the level of electronic market share for U.S. exchange traded cash equities, U.S. equity options and foreign exchange spots are each over 90.0%.

The Other Asset Classes Available on our Platforms

Through our acquisition of Pragma in 2023, we diversified our product offering by providing automated and algorithmic trading products in equities and foreign exchange. In 2025, we completed our acquisition of a majority stake in RFQ-hub, a multi‑asset platform that connects buy‑side trading desks and portfolio managers with a large network of sell‑side market makers in Europe, North America and the APAC region for the trading of global listed and over the counter financial instruments, including ETFs and derivative instruments.

Our End-to-End Trading Solutions

A key principle of our strategy is connecting the most robust network of participants through our end-to-end trading solutions. The diverse trading protocols available on our platforms are complemented by a range of pre-trade intelligent data products, post-trade services and technology services. In 2025, 86.8% of our revenues were derived from commissions for transactions executed on our platforms, 6.3% of our revenues were derived from our data products, 5.3% of our revenues were derived from our post-trade services and 1.6% of our revenues were derived from our technology services.

Trade Execution Solutions

Through our platforms, our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients have access to a wide range of trading protocols to assist them with achieving best execution. In addition, we are innovating and modernizing our platforms by integrating a suite of automated and algorithmic trading solutions, as well as order and execution workflow solutions, to help clients manage risks, establish guardrails, streamline processes, remain compliant and improve execution quality.

We believe that X-Pro seamlessly combines enhanced trading workflows with our proprietary data and pre-trade analytics discussed under “— Integrated and Actionable Data Products” below. We plan to continue to expand the use of X-Pro by our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients for a variety of workflows, including automated trading and portfolio transactions.

Disclosed Request for Quote

Our traditional disclosed RFQ protocol allows our institutional investor clients to simultaneously request competing, executable bids or offers from our dealer clients and execute trades with the dealer of their choice from among those that choose to respond. We are not a counterparty to any of the disclosed RFQ trades that are executed on our platforms between institutional investor clients and dealer clients; rather, our platforms enable them to meet, agree on a price and then execute and settle the transaction directly with each other. The disclosed RFQ protocol is available in all our product areas and can be used for single bond inquiries, list trading, portfolio trading and swap trades. In 2025, over 60.0% of all credit volume on the MarketAxess platform was executed via a form of our disclosed RFQ protocol.

Open Trading

We offer Open Trading, our all-to-all trading solution, for most of our products and trading protocols. Open Trading complements our disclosed RFQ protocol by increasing the number of potential counterparties by allowing all participants to interact anonymously in an all-to-all trading environment of approximately 1,800 potential counterparties. We believe the optionality for increased liquidity drives meaningful price improvement to our clients and helps reduce liquidity risk in the fixed-income markets in which we participate. Open Trading participants are able to maintain their anonymity from trade initiation all the way through to settlement. Unlike our disclosed RFQ protocol, in connection with our Open Trading protocols, we execute bond transactions 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 in matching back-to-back trades.

We currently offer Open Trading protocols for most of our products, including U.S. high-grade bonds, U.S. high-yield bonds, eurobonds, certain emerging market debt, municipal bonds, U.S. government bonds, agency bonds and other government bonds. Following the introduction of Open Trading on our platforms in 2013, we have continued to build upon the technology to develop more features and services. Our leading Open Trading protocols include Open Trading RFQ, Dealer RFQ, Mid-X sessions and Live Markets. In 2025, approximately 37.0% of eligible credit volume on the MarketAxess platform was executed via Open Trading protocols.

Automated and Algorithmic Trading Solutions

We believe that our automated and algorithmic trading solutions, which allow clients to set eligibility criteria for their orders that our platforms will use to determine whether to execute a trade in accordance with the pre-defined parameters, increase trading efficiency and allow traders to focus on higher-value trades. We expect that bond trading velocity will grow in the years ahead due to the increased adoption of trading automation by both broker-dealer and institutional investor participants. Some of our fixed-income automation tools include Auto-X RFQ, Auto-X Responder, Adaptive Auto-X and U.S. Treasury Hedging.

In addition, we support a large and growing base of dealer market making algorithms. Dealer market making algorithms enhance the liquidity available on our platforms by increasing the number of competitive responses to each RFQ, thereby increasing a participant’s likelihood of completing a trade at the best price. In 2025, there were 261 client firms using our automated and algorithmic trading solutions, up 6.5% from 2024.

We anticipate that the Pragma technology driving our Adaptive Auto-X functionality will be utilized across our broader suite of automation solutions. The Pragma360 platform provides a customized software-as-a-service algorithmic trading solution with hosted and dedicated trading environments for clients, which is integrated with Panorama, Pragma’s advanced, web-based algorithm management system.

Order and Execution Workflow Solutions

We provide order and execution workflow solutions designed to meet the specific needs of our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients. For example, LiquidityBridge® is our execution management system offered to dealers that allows users to manage and facilitate the complex liquidity flows across multiple trading platforms, including the MarketAxess system. LiquidityBridge brings together real-time comparison and execution of bond prices across multiple sectors, allowing users to rapidly react to trading opportunities. In addition, Axess IQ™ is our order and execution workflow solution designed to meet the needs of the wealth management and private banking community by improving liquidity discovery, execution efficiency and alpha generation for firms with large numbers of individual client orders.

Integrated and Actionable Data Products

Timely and accurate data is particularly important in the fixed-income markets where real-time data has traditionally been scarce and transparency has been limited. Traders are increasingly using our data solutions for pre-trade analytics, automated execution, transaction cost analysis and liquidity metrics. We believe that our electronic trading platforms allow institutional investors to compile, sort and use information to discover investment opportunities that might have been difficult or impossible to identify using a manual information gathering process or other electronic services. Our data products are based on the trading activity, completed transactions and trade reporting services that occur on or through our platforms, as well as public sources such as TRACE.

Our integrated and actionable data products include:

• Liquidity solutions for (a) pre-trade analysis, including Relative Liquidity Score, which provides a defined measurement of the current liquidity for individual bonds and highlights the relative potential ease that a trader can expect when transacting in such instruments; (b) counterparty selection tools, such as an AI-driven dealer selection tool, which predicts which counterparties are most likely to win a trade; and (c) per trade expectations of dealer responses.
• Real time pricing solutions, such as (a) CP+, a pricing algorithm that generates near real-time pricing for U.S. high grade, U.S. high yield, eurobonds, emerging markets, European government bonds and municipal bonds, based on a variety of data inputs, including feeds from our trading platforms, our post-trade services and TRACE; and (b) Axess All, the first intra-day trade tape for the European fixed-income market, that is sourced from the thousands of daily bond transactions processed by our post-trade services business and includes aggregated volume and pricing for the most actively traded European fixed-income instruments.
• Market data solutions that offer additional price discovery and liquidity analysis, including end of day and intraday volume and pricing files for TRACE and non-TRACE securities.

We also seek to develop new strategic data partnerships to increase the distribution of our data products. For example, in 2024, we partnered with S&P Global Market Intelligence to integrate S&P Global Bond Reference Data into our suite of data products and include CP+ real-time pricing in S&P Global’s Evaluated Bond Pricing. In 2025, we partnered with FactSet to provide CP+ real-time data within the FactSet Workstation platform and datafeeds, giving FactSet users including asset managers, hedge funds, wealth advisors and institutional traders in-terminal access to CP+ bond pricing data.

Post-Trade Services

We provide post-trade matching and regulatory reporting services and market and reference data across a range of fixed-income products. In response to the requirements of the E.U. Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (“MiFID II”) and U.K. equivalent, we have developed a comprehensive suite of value-add solutions, including SensAI, pre-trade transparency services, data quality analysis and peer benchmarking.

In the E.U. and U.K., all firms regulated as “investment firms” under MiFID II are required to submit complete and accurate details of qualifying transactions to their national regulator no later than the close of the working day following the date of the transaction. This process is known as transaction reporting. Firms may either report directly to their regulator or use an entity that is licensed as an Approved Reporting Mechanism (“ARM”), such as our subsidiaries in the U.K. and the Netherlands, to validate and submit such reports to their regulator. Our multi-asset class ARM reporting solution allows our clients to report to 25 different European regulators. We have also collaborated with Equilend on a full front-to-back Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (“SFTR”) solution to support mutual clients with their SFTR reporting requirements.

Under the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (“MiFIR”), all regulated investment firms in the U.K. and the E.U. are required to comply with pre- and post-trade transparency requirements pursuant to which certain quotes and trades must be made public subject to a system of waivers and deferrals. Firms are required to utilize an Approved Publication Arrangement (“APA”), such as our APAs in the U.K. and the Netherlands, to comply with the post-trade transparency requirement and many firms utilize a third-party provider to satisfy the pre-trade transparency requirement. The MarketAxess transparency and APA trade reporting solutions are available through our Insight™ platform, offering our clients a pre- and post-trade transparency solution, including APA trade reporting, quote publication and instrument liquidity classification.

Post-trade matching enables counterparties to match the economic trade details of a trade and settlement information shortly after execution, reducing the risk of trade errors and fails during settlement. We provide a near real-time post-trade matching and exception management tool which covers a broad range of securities, including fixed-income and equities. By confirming all economic details within minutes of trade execution, we help our clients to mitigate their operational risk, improve STP and efficiency and address the complexities of MiFID II and the Central Securities Depositories Regulation.

MarketAxess has approximately 1,000 post-trade reporting, post-trade matching and transparency clients, including investment firms, venues and aggregators, across multiple products.

Technology Services

Through our acquisition of Pragma, we provide Polaris, a high-performance execution management service (“EMS”), to the New York Stock Exchange and their clients. Polaris is customized to the requirements of the NYSE’s equity floor brokers and incorporates an HTML5 interface to provide the brokers with dynamic visualizations, customized alerting, complex workflows and algorithmic execution.

Our Clients

Approximately 2,100 institutional investor and broker-dealer firms are active users of our platforms. We have developed trusted relationships with many of our clients and have invested in maintaining strong relationships with our largest clients. Although institutional investors, specialist market making firms, proprietary trading firms and other non-traditional liquidity providers have increasingly provided liquidity on our platforms through Open Trading, we believe traditional broker-dealers still represent the principal source of secondary market liquidity in the markets in which we operate. Certain of our clients may account for a significant portion of our trading volume. Market knowledge and feedback from these clients have also been important factors in the development of many of our offerings and solutions. Our institutional investor and broker-dealer clients are increasingly trading multiple products on our platforms and using multiple trading protocols in order to execute upon their trading strategies.

Our Technology

Proprietary Technology

Our electronic trading platforms are based on a secure and scalable architecture that makes broad use of distributed computing to achieve speed and reliability. We provide clients with customizable technology that connects them to fixed-income markets across the trading lifecycle.

We support the achievement of best execution through the choice to use any of our many trading protocols, supported by the X-Pro interface, and our all-to-all Open Trading protocols. In designing X-Pro, we enhanced the trading experience by providing traders with a flexible user experience, intuitive workflows and easy access to our proprietary data and pre-trade analytics. Open Trading increases the number of potential trading counterparties by allowing participants to interact anonymously in an all-to-all trading environment of approximately 1,800 potential counterparties. We believe this technology enhances our institutional investor clients’ ability to obtain a competitive price by allowing all Open Trading participants to interact with each other and increases the likelihood of receiving a competitive price response. We estimate that Open Trading generated approximately $496.4 million of price improvement for our clients in 2025.

In addition, our clients have access to automated and algorithmic trading technologies, which allow clients to set eligibility criteria for their orders that will determine whether a trade is executed on our platforms in accordance with their pre-defined parameters. These automated and algorithmic trading protocols are designed to help increase trading efficiency, freeing traders to focus on more complex or higher-value trades.

In addition to services directly related to the execution of trades, MarketAxess offers clients several other pre- and post-trade services. In the pre-trade period, our platforms assist our participants by providing them with value-added services, such as real-time and historical trade price information, liquidity and turnover analytics, bond reference data and trade order matching alerts. Following the execution of a trade, our platforms enable our participants to realize the full benefits of electronic trading and demonstrate best execution, including customization, real-time trade details, STP, account allocations, automated audit trails, regulatory trade reporting, trade detail matching and transaction cost analysis.

Technology Team

The design and quality of our technology products is supported by a team of approximately 370 full-time technology professionals led by managers with deep market knowledge and fixed-income expertise. This combination of market knowledge and industry expertise allows us to address client demand and to focus on solutions that can be scaled across client sectors, fixed-income asset classes and trading protocols. Our technology is critical to our growth and our ability to execute our business strategy.

Our technology team is focused on:

• Continuing to evolve our technology platform. We believe that it is imperative that we continue to invest in and evolve our technology in order to continue innovating and delivering new features and protocols to our clients. For example, we increasingly utilize cloud technology to capitalize on innovative tooling, cost savings and improvements to development velocity.
• Investing in resiliency, scale and risk management. We recognize the value of investing in our capacity and risk management capabilities. The MarketAxess platforms are built on industry-standard technologies and have been designed to handle loads that exceed our current trading volume. In addition, all critical server-side components, including networks, application servers and databases, have backup solutions. This maximizes uptime and minimizes the potential for loss of transaction data in the event of an internal failure. We also seek to minimize the impact of external failures by automatically recovering connections in the event of a communications failure. Most of our broker-dealer clients and a significant number of our institutional investor clients have redundant dedicated high-speed communication paths to our network to provide fast data transfer. Our security measures include industry-standard communications encryption.
• Continuing product delivery and improvement of features. Our technology team is focused on our agile product development cycle and continued innovation of our platforms with new features. During the year ended December 31, 2025, we delivered approximately 1,000 unique new business and technical features to our clients.

See Part I, Item 1C. – “Cybersecurity” for more information about our cybersecurity program as well as Part I, Item 1A. – “Risk Factors — Technology, IT Systems and Cybersecurity Risks.”

Sales and Marketing

We sell and promote our offerings and solutions using a variety of sales and marketing strategies. Our sales organization follows a team-based approach to covering clients, deploying our product and regional expertise as best dictated by evolving market conditions. Our sales force, which works closely with our product management and technology teams, is responsible for new client acquisition and the management of ongoing client relationships to increase clients’ awareness, knowledge and usage of our solutions and products. Our sales team is also responsible for training and supporting new and existing clients on their use of our trade execution services, integrated and actionable data offerings and post-trade solutions, including how to optimize their trading performance and efficiency through our various trading protocols.

Given the breadth of our global client network, trading volume activity and engagement with regulators, we regularly educate market participants on market trends, the impact of regulatory changes and technology advancements. Our senior executives often provide insight and thought leadership to the industry through conversations with the media, appearances at important industry events, roundtables and forums, submitting authored opinion pieces to media outlets and conducting topical webinars for our clients. We believe this provides a valued service for our constituents and enhances our brand awareness and stature within the financial community. Additionally, we employ various marketing strategies to strengthen our brand position and explain our offerings, including through our public website, advertising, digital and social media, earned media, direct marketing, promotional mailings, industry conferences and hosted events.

Seasonality

Our revenue can be impacted by seasonal effects caused by increased levels of new bond issuance, which often occurs in the first quarter of a year, or slowdowns in trading activity, particularly during the customary holiday periods in August and December.

Competition

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. We compete with a broad range of market participants globally. Some of these market participants compete with us in a particular market, while select others compete against substantially all of our platforms and solutions.

We primarily compete on the basis of our client network, the liquidity provided by our broker-dealer clients, the unique liquidity and the potential for price improvement offered by our Open Trading protocols, 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 our competitive position is enhanced by the familiarity and integration of our clients’ systems with our electronic trading platforms and other systems.

Our trading platforms face the following main areas of competition:

• Bilateral Trading — We compete with bond trading business conducted over the telephone or electronic messaging directly between broker-dealers and their institutional investor clients. Institutional investors have historically purchased fixed-income securities by telephoning or otherwise communicating via instant messaging with bond sales professionals at one or more broker-dealers and inquiring about the price and availability of individual bonds. This remains the manner in which the majority of corporate bond volumes are still traded between institutional investors and broker-dealers.
• Other multi-party electronic trading platforms — There are numerous other electronic trading platforms currently in existence, including several that have only commenced operations in the last few years. We compete with Tradeweb (indirectly controlled by the London Stock Exchange), Bloomberg, Intercontinental Exchange (Bondpoint, TMC Bonds, Creditex), Trumid, TP ICAP (Liquidnet, Neptune Networks) and others in the credit and municipal markets; and Tradeweb, Bloomberg, CME Group (BrokerTec), BGC Partners (Fenics UST) and others in the rates markets. In addition, some broker-dealers and institutional investors operate, or have invested in, proprietary electronic trading systems or information networks that enable institutional investors to trade directly with a broker-dealer, and/or with other institutional investors over an electronic medium. As we expand our business into new products, we will likely come into more direct competition with other electronic trading platforms or firms offering traditional services.
• EMS and OMS Providers – There are various providers of EMS and order management services (“OMS”) that offer aggregation of trading venue liquidity, as well as direct-to-dealer fully electronic trading solutions.
• Securities and Futures Exchanges — In recent years, exchanges have pursued acquisitions that have put them in competition with us. For example, the London Stock Exchange Group acquired a significant stake in Tradeweb and Intercontinental Exchange acquired BondPoint and TMC Bonds, retail-focused platforms, and IDC, a provider of fixed-income data, in an expansion of its portfolio of fixed-income products and services. Exchanges also have data and analytics businesses, which increasingly put their offerings in direct competition with us.

Our data business competes with several large market data and information providers, such as Bloomberg, the London Stock Exchange (LSEG Data & Analytics), Intercontinental Exchange and S&P Global, which currently have a data and analytics relationship with virtually every institutional firm. These entities are currently direct competitors to our information services business and already are or may in the future become direct competitors to our electronic trading platforms.

Our post-trade business competes with other approved regulatory mechanisms in Europe that have ARM and APA designations, such as the London Stock Exchange’s UnaVista and Tradeweb, to provide post-trade matching and regulatory transaction reporting and transparency services to European clients.

Our automated and algorithmic trading solutions business competes with other providers of commercial algorithms.

We face intense competition, and we expect competition to continue to intensify in the future. See Part I, Item 1A. – “Risk Factors — Risks Related to Operating in the Electronic Fixed-Income Trading Markets — We face substantial competition that could reduce trading on our platforms or our market share and harm our financial performance.”

Intellectual Property

We rely upon a combination of copyright, patent, trade secret and trademark laws, written agreements and common law to protect our proprietary technology, processes and other intellectual property. Our software code, elements of our electronic trading platforms, website and other proprietary materials are protected by copyright laws. We have been issued several patents covering significant trading protocols and other aspects of our trading system technology.

The written agreements upon which we rely to protect our proprietary technology, processes and intellectual property include agreements designed to protect our trade secrets. Examples of these written agreements include third-party nondisclosure agreements, employee nondisclosure and inventions assignment agreements, and agreements with customers, contractors and strategic partners. Other written agreements upon which we rely to protect our proprietary technology, processes and intellectual property take many forms and contain provisions related to patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret rights.

We have registered the MarketAxess® name and logo for trademark in the U.S., Europe and in other parts of the world. We also have a number of other registered or pending trademarks and service marks globally, including Open Trading®, BondTicker®, Axess IQ® and Axess All® among others. In addition, we own, or have filed applications for, the rights to trade names, copyrights, domain names and service marks that we use in the marketing of products and services to clients.

In addition to our efforts to register our intellectual property, we believe that factors such as the technological and creative skills of our personnel, new product and service developments, frequent enhancements and reliability with respect to our services are essential to establishing and maintaining a technology and market leadership position.

Government Regulation

The securities industry and financial markets in the U.S. and elsewhere are subject to extensive regulation. In these jurisdictions, government regulators and self-regulatory organizations oversee the conduct of our business, and have broad powers to promulgate and interpret laws, rules and regulations that may serve to restrict or limit our business. As a matter of public policy, these regulators are charged with safeguarding the integrity of the securities and other financial markets and with protecting the interests of investors participating in those markets. Our active broker-dealer and regulated venue subsidiaries fall within the scope of their regulations. Rulemaking by regulators, including resulting market structure changes, has had an impact on our business by directly affecting our method of operation and, at times, our profitability.

As registered broker-dealers, trading venues and other types of regulated entities as described below, certain of our subsidiaries are subject to laws, rules and regulations (including the rules of self-regulatory organizations) that cover all aspects of their business, including manner of operation, system integrity, anti-money laundering and financial crimes, handling of material non-public information, safeguarding data, capital requirements, reporting, record retention, market access, licensing of employees and the conduct of officers, employees and other associated persons.

From time to time, regulations impose increased obligations on our regulated subsidiaries, including our broker-dealer subsidiary. These increased obligations require the implementation and maintenance of internal practices, procedures and controls, which have increased our costs. Many of our regulators, as well as other governmental authorities, are empowered to bring enforcement actions and to conduct administrative proceedings, examinations, inspections and investigations, which may result in increased compliance costs, penalties, fines, enhanced oversight, increased financial and capital requirements, additional restrictions or limitations, censure, suspension or disqualification of the entity and/or its officers, employees or other associated persons, or other sanctions, such as disgorgement, restitution or the revocation or limitation of regulatory approvals. Whether or not resulting in adverse findings, regulatory proceedings, examinations, inspections and investigations can require substantial expenditures of time and money and can have an adverse impact on a firm’s reputation, client relationships and profitability. From time to time, we and our associated persons have been and are subject to routine reviews, none of which to date have had a material adverse effect on our businesses, financial condition, results of operations or prospects. As a result of such reviews, and any future actions or reviews, we may be required to, among other things, amend certain internal structures and frameworks such as our operating procedures, systems and controls.

The regulatory environment in which we operate is subject to constant change. We are unable to predict how new laws and proposed rules and regulations will be implemented or in what form, or whether any changes to existing laws, rules and regulations, including the interpretation, implementation or enforcement thereof or a relaxation or amendment thereof, will occur in the future. See Part I, Item 1A. – “Risk Factors – Regulatory and Legal Risks – Our business and the trading businesses of many of our clients are subject to increasingly extensive government and other regulation, which may affect our trading volumes and increase our cost of doing business.”

U.S. Regulation

In the U.S., the SEC is the federal governmental agency primarily responsible for the administration of the federal securities laws, including adopting and enforcing rules and regulations applicable to broker-dealers. Our U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary operates an alternative trading system (“ATS”) subject to the SEC’s Regulation ATS, which includes certain specific requirements and compliance responsibilities in addition to those faced by broker-dealers generally, and an exempt ATS for U.S. government bonds. Broker-dealers are also subject to regulation by state securities administrators in those states in which they conduct business or have registered to do business. We are also subject to the various anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), the Commodity Exchange Act, certain state securities laws and the rules and regulations promulgated thereunder. We also may be subject to vicarious and controlling person liability for the activities of our subsidiaries and our officers, employees and affiliated persons.

Much of the regulation of broker-dealers’ operations in the United States has been delegated to self-regulatory organizations. These self-regulatory organizations adopt rules (which are generally subject to approval by the SEC) that govern the operations of broker-dealers and conduct periodic inspections and examinations of their operations. In the case of our U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary, the principal self-regulatory organization is FINRA. Our U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary is subject to both scheduled and unscheduled examinations by the SEC and FINRA. In addition, our municipal securities-related activities are subject to the rules of the MSRB and certain of our introducing broker activities are subject to the rules of the National Futures Association (“NFA”) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”).

The SEC withdrew multiple rule proposals in 2025, including those relating to the expansion of Regulation ATS and Regulation SCI. It remains unknown, however, 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.

The SEC 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, 2026. Once effective, this central clearing mandate will impact certain of our participants who do not centrally clear such trades today. These reforms may also change how our clients trade and where they clear when using our platforms. While we expect this change will increase our own platform efficiency, it could also negatively affect trading activity and liquidity in the markets in which we operate, and 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.

Non-U.S. Regulation

Outside of the United States, we are currently directly regulated by: the Financial Conduct Authority (the “FCA”) in the U.K., De Nederlandsche Bank (“DNB”) and the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (the “AFM”) in the Netherlands, the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) in the E.U., the Monetary Authority of Singapore in Singapore, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (the “IIROC”) and provincial regulators in Canada, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and Central Bank in Brazil. We also hold cross-border licenses or permissions to operate in other jurisdictions with other regulatory bodies, including the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”), the Securities & Futures Commission of Hong Kong, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission in Australia (“ASIC”), the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (“BaFin”), the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier of Luxembourg, the Italian Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa, the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority, the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority, the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (“CFETS”), a direct subsidiary of the People’s Bank of China and China’s Bond Connect Company Limited.

The FCA’s strategic objective is to ensure that the relevant markets function properly and its operational objectives are to protect consumers, to protect and enhance the integrity of the U.K. financial system and to promote effective competition in the interests of consumers. It has investigative and enforcement powers derived from the Financial Services and Markets Act (the “FSMA”) and subsequent legislation and regulations. Subject to the FSMA, individuals or companies that seek to acquire or increase their control in a firm that the FCA regulates are required to obtain prior approval from the FCA.

In 2023, amendments to the FSMA repealed the E.U.-inherited financial services framework and expanded the FCA’s regulatory authority, including establishing a new secondary objective to promote “economic growth and international competitiveness” for the U.K. In 2025, the FCA selected a consolidated tape provider (“CTP”) for bonds, expected to begin operating in June 2026. The U.K.’s revised transparency regime for bonds and derivatives became effective in December 2025, removing pre-trade transparency for RFQ protocols, simplifying waivers and deferrals, and introducing additional transparency requirements for bonds traded on venues and certain derivatives subject to clearing.

The securities industry and financial markets in the 27 member states of the E.U. are regulated by the National Competent Authorities in each member state, or with respect to Data Reporting Services Providers (“DRSPs”), such as our E.U. post-trade business, by ESMA itself. E.U. regulations provide for a cross-border “passporting regime”, which allows us to provide our regulated services to customers throughout the E.U. in reliance upon AFM authorizations for our subsidiaries in the Netherlands. We have also established regulatory branches of our E.U. trading venue in Italy and Germany, which allows the Company to have a physical presence in those jurisdictions.

The legal framework in the Netherlands for financial undertakings is predominantly included in the Dutch Financial Supervision Act (“FSA”). The AFM authorizes investment firms and oversees business supervision, while DNB is responsible for prudential supervision to ensure the solidity of financial undertakings and contribute to financial sector stability. Holders of shareholdings or voting rights of 10% or more must apply to the DNB for a declaration of no objection and satisfy the applicable requirements of the FSA.

Following a review of the effectiveness of MiFID II and MiFIR, the European Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission adopted a package of revisions in January 2024 (the “MiFIR Review”). The first stage became effective in 2024, with full effectiveness expected in 2026. The MiFIR Review includes changes to transparency requirements, data quality and pricing standards, organizational requirements for APAs and ARMs, and the E.U. CTP framework for transactions executed on E.U. trading platforms, such as our multilateral trading facilities (“MTFs”). In July 2025, ESMA selected a CTP for bonds for the E.U., and we currently expect that all E.U. trading venues will be obliged to share their trading data with the CTP no sooner than the fourth quarter of 2026.

Although MiFID II and MiFIR were intended to help improve the functioning of the E.U. single market by achieving a greater consistency of regulatory standards, the U.K.’s departure from the E.U. in 2020 (commonly referred to as “Brexit”), has introduced additional operational complexity as the regulatory standards continue to diverge between the U.K. and the E.U. In general, MiFID II and MiFIR in both the E.U. and the U.K. continue to cause us to expend significantly more compliance, business and technology resources, to incur additional operational costs and has created additional regulatory exposure for our trading and post-trade businesses. While we generally believe the net impact of the rules and regulations, and the ongoing changes have been positive for our businesses, unintended consequences of the rules and regulations (and ongoing amendments thereto) may adversely affect us in ways yet to be determined. In particular, the ongoing divergence of the U.K. from the E.U. following Brexit in relation to the future development of MiFID II and MiFIR and other rules and regulations within the financial markets (such as the Central Securities Depository Regulation or E.U.’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (“DORA”)) may further increase the complexity, operational costs and compliance requirements of our business in the U.K. and E.U.

DORA, which focuses on the security of network and information systems of financial services entities, as well as third parties which provide certain information communication technologies services (“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.

Capital Requirements

Certain of our subsidiaries are subject to jurisdictional specific regulatory capital requirements, designed to maintain the general financial integrity and liquidity of a regulated entity. In general, they require that at least a minimum amount of a regulated entity’s assets be kept in relatively liquid form. Failure to maintain required minimum capital may subject a regulated subsidiary to a fine, requirement to cease conducting business, suspension, revocation of registration or expulsion by the applicable regulatory authorities, and ultimately could require the relevant entity’s liquidation.

In addition, as a result of its self-clearing and settlement activities, our U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary is 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. 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.

Regulatory Status of MarketAxess Entities

Our operations span jurisdictions across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and we operate through various regulated entities. The current regulatory status of many of our business entities is described below. We also provide our platforms in other countries pursuant to exemptions from registration under the laws of such countries.

Americas

MarketAxess Corporation is registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC and as an introducing broker with the CFTC. It is a member of FINRA, the MSRB, the NFA and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (“SIPC”).

MarketAxess Canada Company is registered as an Alternative Trading System with the Ontario Securities Commission, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, the British Columbia Securities Commission and the Alberta Securities Commission and is a member of IIROC.

MarketAxess Plataforma de Negociacao Ltda. is authorized through its parent (MarketAxess Holdings Inc.) by Comissão de Valores Mobiliários and BACEN (Central Bank of Brazil) to provide a system in Brazil for the trading of fixed-income securities by sophisticated institutional investors.

MarketAxess Colombia Corporation is registered with the Superintendence of Finance of Colombia as an Information System.

U.K. and the E.U.

MarketAxess Capital Limited is authorized and regulated by the FCA as a U.K. MiFID investment firm (limited license) and acts as a matched principal counterparty for Open Trading transactions.

MarketAxess Europe Limited is authorized and regulated by the FCA to operate an MTF, holds an Australian Markets License (AML) from the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), is recognized by FINMA as a foreign trading venue, licensed by BaFin under the German Securities Trading Act, licensed by the Securities & Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong as an Automated Trading Service and approved by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as a Recognized Market Operator. In addition, following Brexit, MarketAxess Europe Limited is recognized or licensed on a cross-border basis to provide its services in Italy and Finland and on a temporary cross-border basis in each of Luxembourg, Denmark and Norway.

MarketAxess NL B.V. is authorized and regulated by the AFM in the Netherlands as an MTF. MarketAxess NL B.V. may provide cross-border services throughout the 27 member states of the E.U. and EEA countries under the MiFID passport and is approved by FINMA to provide cross-border services into Switzerland as a foreign trading venue, and has regulatory branches in Germany and Italy.

MarketAxess Post-Trade NL B.V. is established in the Netherlands and holds a license to operate as a DRSP under the supervision of ESMA, specifically to act as an ARM and APA. MarketAxess Post-Trade NL B.V. may provide cross border services throughout the 27 member states of the E.U. and EEA countries under the MiFID passport, and has a regulatory branch in Germany.

MarketAxess Post Trade Limited is authorized and regulated by the FCA as a DRSP for ARM and APA services and as a service company.

Asia and Pacific

MarketAxess Singapore Pte. Limited is approved by the MAS as a Recognized Market Operator. Additionally, MarketAxess Singapore Pte. Limited is approved on a cross-border basis by FINMA in Switzerland as a foreign trading venue, by SFC in Hong Kong as an Automated Trading System, by BaFIN in Germany as a foreign market operator, and holds an Australian Markets License from ASIC.

MarketAxess Information Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is a wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE) in China. Its business scope includes non-licensed information, data and technology related services. The MarketAxess offshore electronic trading platform (i) is recognized by CFETS and Bond Connect Company Limited for the provision of Bond Connect and CIBM Direct RFQ connectivity services; and (ii) has an agreement with Clearcorp Dealing Systems (India) Limited for connectivity services with NDS-OM.

Human Capital Resources

As of December 31, 2025, we had 868 employees, 554 of whom were based in the U.S. and 314 of whom were based outside of the U.S., principally in the U.K. During fiscal year 2025, we decreased our number of employees by 23, or 2.6%, compared to an increase of 10, or 1.1%, in 2024. None of our employees in the U.S. is represented by a labor union. Certain employees outside the U.S. are subject to industry-standard collective bargaining frameworks applicable in their jurisdictions. We consider our relationships with our employees to be good and have not experienced any interruptions of operations due to labor disagreements.

Our talent management strategy is focused on attracting, developing and retaining top talent within the Company. We use a variety of hiring sources to broaden our candidate pools, including employee referrals, recruitment vendors, postings on a variety of job boards, partnering with diverse professional organizations and student organizations, and attending various recruiting events. The market for qualified staff, especially technology professionals, continues to be competitive in our talent markets. Many companies, including our competitors and firms outside of our industry, are interested in hiring our experienced personnel. We offer competitive benefits programs to employees in all regions, including comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, disability programs and various vehicles for saving for the future.

We are committed to positioning MarketAxess for further growth through ongoing talent management, succession planning and the deepening of our leadership bench. We utilize regular critical role assessments and talent reviews to ensure that the Company has adequate talent to run the Company’s business today and evolve the Company for the future. We maintain short- and long-term succession plans for our Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) and other key members of senior management.

We believe that investing in development for our employees is crucial to our success and ability to attract and retain the best talent in our industry. Currently, we offer a development program for new managers and additional programs to enable leaders to foster accountability and clear communication in the teams they lead. We offer a range of live and on-demand technical, markets-related, product management and professional skills development to all employees globally to enable employees to develop a wide range of skills and continue their career growth at MarketAxess.

Company Information

MarketAxess was incorporated in Delaware in April 2000. Our internet website address is www.marketaxess.com (http://www.marketaxess.com). Through our internet website, we will make available, free of charge, the following reports as soon as reasonably practicable after electronically filing them with, or furnishing them to, the SEC: our annual report on Form 10-K; our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q; our current reports on Form 8-K; and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act, as amended. Our Proxy Statements for our Annual Meetings are also available through our internet website. Our internet website and the information contained therein or connected thereto are not intended to be incorporated into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. You may also obtain copies of our reports without charge by writing to:

55 Hudson Yards

New York, NY 10001

Attn: Investor Relations

Our Board has standing Audit, Compensation and Talent, Nominating and Corporate Governance, Risk and Finance Committees. Each of these committees has a written charter approved by our Board and our Board has also adopted a set of Corporate Governance Guidelines. Copies of the committee charters and the Corporate Governance Guidelines are also posted on our website.

The SEC maintains an internet website that contains annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy and information statements and other information that issuers (including the Company) file electronically with the SEC. The SEC’s internet website is www.sec.gov (http://www.sec.gov).

Risk Factors Summary

The following is a summary of the principal risks and uncertainties described in more detail in this Annual Report on Form 10-K:

Risks Relating to Market and Industry Dynamics and Competition

• Global economic, political and market factors beyond our control could reduce demand for our services, and our profitability and business could suffer.
• Decreases in trading volumes in the fixed-income markets generally or on our platforms would harm our business and profitability.
• The industry in which we operate is rapidly evolving. If we are unable to adapt our business effectively to keep pace with industry changes, we may not be able to compete effectively, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
• We face substantial competition that could reduce trading on our platforms or our market share and harm our financial performance.

Risks Related to our Future Levels of Business, Profitability and Growth

• Neither the sustainability of our current level of business nor any future growth can be assured. Even if we do experience growth, we may not grow profitably.
• We may enter into new fee plans, the impact of which may be difficult to evaluate; past trends in commissions are not necessarily indicative of future commissions.
• As we enter new markets, we may not be able to successfully attract clients and adapt our technology and marketing strategy for use in those markets.
• We may face increasing challenges in our growing international operations that we may not be able to meet in the future.

Risks Related to our Operation and Performance of our Business

• We are dependent on our broker-dealer clients, who are not restricted from using their own proprietary or third-party platforms to transact with our institutional investor clients.
• We could lose significant sources of revenue and trading volume if we lose any of our significant institutional investor clients.
• We are exposed to risks in connection with certain transactions in which we act as a matched principal intermediary.
• Self-clearing exposes us to significant operational, liquidity, financing and regulatory risks.
• We depend on third-party suppliers for key products and services.
• If we acquire or invest in other businesses, products or technologies, and are unable to integrate them with our business, our financial performance may be impaired or we may not realize the anticipated financial and strategic goals for any such transactions or any strategic alliances, partnerships or joint ventures, which we may enter into.
• Failure to retain our senior management team or the inability to attract and retain qualified personnel could materially adversely impact our ability to operate or grow our business.
• Economic sanctions levied against states or individuals could expose us to significant operational and regulatory risks.
• Risks related to climate change or other sustainability risks could adversely affect our operations or reputation.

Technology, Cybersecurity and Intellectual Property Risks

• Rapid market or technological changes may render our technology obsolete or decrease the attractiveness of our products and services to our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients.
• Issues related to the development and use of AI may result in reputational harm, liability, or other adverse consequences to our business operations.
• Our success depends on maintaining the integrity and capacity of our electronic trading platforms, systems and infrastructure.
• System failures, interruptions, delays in service, catastrophic events and resulting interruptions in the availability of our trading platforms could materially harm our business and reputation.
• If we experience design defects, errors, failures or delays with our platforms, products or services, including our automated and algorithmic trading solutions and pricing algorithms, our business could suffer serious harm.
• Malicious cyber-attacks, attempted cybersecurity breaches, and other adverse events affecting our operational systems or infrastructure, or those of third parties, could disrupt our businesses, result in the disclosure of confidential information, cause system unavailability damage our reputation and cause losses or regulatory penalties.
• Our actual or perceived failure to comply with privacy and data protection laws, regulations, and obligations could harm our business.
• We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights or technology effectively, which would allow competitors to duplicate or replicate our electronic trading platforms or any of our other current or future functionalities, products or services. This could adversely affect our ability to compete.
• Defending against intellectual property infringement or other claims could be expensive and disruptive to our business. If we are found to infringe the proprietary rights of others, we could be required to redesign our technology, pay royalties or enter into license agreements with third parties.
• Our use of open-source software could result in litigation or require us to re-engineer our platforms or use other commercial solutions.

Regulatory and Legal Risks

• We operate in a highly regulated industry and we may face restrictions with respect to the way we conduct certain of our operations.
• Our business and the trading businesses of many of our clients are subject to increasingly extensive government and other regulation, which may affect our trading volumes and increase our cost of doing business.
• The extensive regulation of our business means we have ongoing exposure to potentially significant costs and penalties.
• We are subject to the risks of litigation and securities laws liability.
• If our tax filing positions were to be challenged by federal, state and local, or foreign tax jurisdictions, we may not be wholly successful in defending our tax filing positions.

Liquidity and Funding Risks

• We cannot predict our future capital needs or our ability to obtain additional financing if we need it.
• Our credit agreement contains restrictive and financial covenants that could limit our operating flexibility, and we may incur additional debt in the future that may include similar or additional restrictions.
• We maintain our cash at financial institutions, often in balances that exceed federally insured limits.

Risks Relating to Market and Industry Dynamics and Competition

Global economic, political and market factors beyond our control could reduce demand for our services, and our profitability and business could suffer.

The global financial services business is, by its nature, risky and volatile and is directly affected by many national and international factors that are beyond our control. Recently, for example, central bank interest rate changes, rising inflation and governmental action related to tariffs each created significant volatility in the markets we serve and increased uncertainty and economic disruption. Certain of the factors below have caused, and may in the future cause, a substantial decline in the U.S. and/or global financial services markets, resulting in reduced trading volume, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These factors include:

• economic and political conditions in the United States, Europe and elsewhere;
• adverse market conditions, including unforeseen market closures or other disruptions in trading;
• broad trends in business and finance, including the amount of new securities issuances;
• consolidation or contraction in the number of market participants;
• the current or anticipated impact of climate change, extreme weather events, natural disasters or other catastrophic events;
• the emergence of widespread health emergencies or pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic;
• actual or threatened acts of war or terrorism or other armed hostilities, as well as international sanctions levied against countries and other parties;
• actual or threatened trade wars, or other governmental action related to tariffs, international trade agreements or trade policies;
• concerns over, or actual, increased levels of inflation and weakening consumer confidence levels due to a recession (in the United States or globally) or otherwise;
• the availability of cash for investment by mutual funds, exchange traded funds and other wholesale and retail investors;
• the level and volatility of interest rates, including significant interest rate hikes, the difference between the yields on corporate securities being traded and those on related benchmark securities and foreign currency exchange rates;
• the effect of monetary policy adopted by the Federal Reserve Board or foreign banking authorities, increased capital requirements for banks and other financial institutions, and other regulatory requirements and political impasses;
• credit availability and other liquidity concerns;
• concerns over credit default or bankruptcy of one or more sovereign nations or corporate entities; and
• legislative, administrative, regulatory or government policy changes, including changes to financial industry regulations and tax laws.

There have been significant declines in trading volumes in the financial markets generally in the past and there may be similar declines in trading volumes generally or across our platforms in the future. Any one or more of the above factors may contribute to reduced trading volumes. Our revenues and profitability are likely to decline significantly during periods of stagnant economic conditions, low volatility or low trading volumes in the U.S. and global financial markets.

Decreases in trading volumes in the fixed-income markets generally or on our platforms would harm our business and profitability.

We have experienced significant decreases in overall trading volumes in the past and may experience similar decreases in trading volumes in the future. Declines in the overall volume of fixed-income securities trading and in market liquidity generally, as well as declines in interest rate volatility, could result in lower revenues from commissions for trades executed on our electronic trading platforms and fees generated from related activities.

Likewise, decreases in our share of the segments of the fixed-income trading markets in which we operate, or shifts in trading volume to segments of clients or trading protocols which we have not significantly penetrated, could result in lower trading volume on our platforms and, consequently, lower commission revenue. During periods of increased volatility in fixed-income markets, the use of electronic trading platforms to trade certain highly volatile or distressed bonds may decrease, such as occurred during the regional banking crisis in 2023. In addition, during rapidly moving markets, broker-dealers are less likely to post prices electronically. Our market share of the fixed-income trading markets is also impacted by a variety of other factors, including the amount of new issuances of corporate debt, the level of bond fund inflows or outflows, the percentage of volumes comprised of Rule 144A transactions, the percentage of volumes comprised of larger trades (such as block trades or portfolio trades), the level of credit spreads and credit volatility and whether the prevalent market environment is an “offer wanted” or “bid wanted” environment.

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 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. Furthermore, portfolio trading is generally provided under a lower-fee structure than other protocols and the growth of portfolio trading on our platform will likely have a negative impact on our average credit variable transaction fee per million.

A decline in overall market volumes, trading volumes on our platforms or our platforms’ market share for any reason would negatively affect our commission revenue and may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The industry in which we operate is rapidly evolving. If we are unable to adapt our business effectively to keep pace with industry changes, we may not be able to compete effectively, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The electronic financial services industry is characterized by rapidly changing and increasingly complex technologies and systems, changing and increasingly sophisticated client demands (including access to new technologies, functionalities and markets), frequent technology and service introductions, evolving industry standards, changing regulatory requirements and new business models. If we are not able to keep pace with changing market conditions or client demands and if our competitors release new functionality or technology before we do, our existing platforms, solutions and technologies may become obsolete or our competitive position may be materially harmed, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Operating in a rapidly evolving industry involves a high degree of risk and our future success depends, in part, on our ability to:

• attract and retain market participants on our platforms on a cost-effective basis;
• expand and enhance reliable and cost-effective product and service offerings for our clients;
• develop and introduce new features to, and new versions of, our electronic trading platforms;
• respond effectively to competitive pressures and technological advances, including the use of new or disruptive technology such as AI;
• respond effectively to the loss of any of our significant broker-dealer or institutional investor clients, including due to merger, consolidation, bankruptcy, liquidation or another cause (including, among other things, the collection of any amounts due from such clients);
• operate, support, expand and develop our operations, technology, website, software, communications and other systems;
• defend our trading platforms and other systems from cybersecurity threats; and
• respond to regulatory changes or demands.

If we are unsuccessful in addressing these risks or in executing our business strategy, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.

We face substantial competition that could reduce trading on our platforms or our market share and harm our financial performance.

The fixed-income securities industry generally, and the electronic financial services markets in which we operate in particular, are highly competitive, and we expect competition to intensify in the future. Within our markets, we compete based on our ability to provide our clients with deep liquidity, a broad network of market participants, a wide range of products and protocols, and comprehensive pre-trade, trade and post-trade functionality, as well as the reliability, security and ease of use of our electronic platforms and solutions, among other factors. Our trading platforms primarily compete with other electronic trading platforms and trading businesses conducted directly between broker-dealers and their institutional investor clients over the telephone, email or instant messaging. Our current and prospective trading platform competitors are numerous and include:

• other multi-party electronic trading platforms;
• EMS and OMS providers;
• securities and futures exchanges; and
• technology, software, and information services or other companies that have existing commercial relationships with broker-dealers or institutional investors.

Our data, post-trade and automated and algorithmic trading solutions businesses compete against market data and information vendors, other approved regulatory reporting businesses and commercial algorithm providers, respectively.

Many of our current and potential competitors are more established and substantially larger than we are and have substantially greater market presence, as well as greater financial, technical, marketing and other resources. These competitors have previously aggressively reduced, and may in the future further aggressively reduce, their pricing to enter, or otherwise compete in, market segments in which we provide services, potentially subsidizing any losses with profits from trading in other fixed-income or equity securities or other business operations. In addition, many of our competitors offer a wider range of services, have broader name recognition and have larger customer bases than we do. Some of them may be able to respond more quickly to new or evolving opportunities, technologies and client requirements than we can and may be able to undertake more extensive promotional activities.

Competition in the markets in which we operate has intensified due to consolidation, which has resulted in increasingly large and sophisticated competitors. In recent years, our competitors have made acquisitions and/or entered joint ventures and consortia to improve the competitiveness of their electronic trading offerings. If, because of industry consolidation, our competitors are able to offer lower cost and/or a wider range of trading venues and solutions, obtain more favorable terms from third-party providers or otherwise take actions that could attract trading volume away from our platforms or increase their market share, our competitive position and therefore our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially adversely affected.

Our operations also include the sale of pre- and post-trade services, analytics, and market data services. There is a high degree of competition among market data and information vendors in solutions for pre- and post-trade data, analytics and reporting, and such businesses may become more competitive in the future as new competitors emerge. Some of these companies are already in or may enter the electronic trading business. Accordingly, some of our competitors may be able to combine use of their electronic trading platforms with complementary access to market data and analytical tools and/or leverage relationships with existing clients to obtain additional business from such clients, which could preempt use of our platforms or solutions. For example, Bloomberg, the London Stock Exchange and Intercontinental Exchange own trading platforms that compete with ours and also have data and analytics relationships with the vast majority of institutional, wholesale and retail market participants. If we are not able to compete successfully in this area in the future, our revenues could be adversely impacted and, as a result, our business, financial condition and results of operations would be materially adversely affected.

Risks Related to our Future Levels of Business, Profitability and Growth

Neither the sustainability of our current level of business nor any future growth can be assured. Even if we do experience growth, we may not grow profitably.

The success of our business strategy depends, in part, on our ability to maintain and expand the network of market participants that use our electronic trading platforms. Our business strategy also depends on increasing the use of our platforms by these participants for a wide range of fixed-income products and trade sizes. Individuals at broker-dealers or institutional investors may have conflicting interests, which may discourage their use of our platforms. In certain of our product areas, growth rates for the use of our electronic trading services have slowed in recent years and such growth rates may not resume or increase in the future.

Our growth may also be dependent on our ability to diversify our revenue base. We currently derive approximately 37.8% of our revenues from secondary trading in U.S. high-grade corporate bonds. Our long-term business strategy includes expanding our service offerings and increasing our revenues from other fixed-income products and other sources. Our efforts may not be successful or result in increased revenues or continued profitability.

We may enter into new fee plans, the impact of which may be difficult to evaluate; past trends in commissions are not necessarily indicative of future commissions.

From time to time, we may introduce new fee plans for the market segments in which we operate. Any new fee plan may include different fee structures or provide volume incentives. New fee plans may not result in an increase in the volume of transactions executed over our platforms or our revenues may not increase as a result of the implementation of any such fee plans. It is possible that our broker-dealer or institutional investor clients could respond to a new fee plan by either reducing the amount of their business conducted on our platforms or terminating their contractual relationship with us, which could have an adverse impact on our fees and otherwise have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

In addition, under certain of our U.S. high grade fee plans, our fees are designated in basis points in yield (and, as a result, are subject to fluctuation depending on the duration of the bond traded) or our fees vary based on trade size or maturity. For example, during recent periods, a significant rise in corporate bond yields contributed to a decrease in the duration of the U.S. high grade bonds traded on our platforms, which had a negative effect on our average credit variable transaction fee per million. We anticipate that our average credit variable transaction fee per million may continue to vary in the future due to changes in yield, years-to-maturity and nominal size of bonds traded on our platforms. Consequently, past trends in commissions are not necessarily indicative of future commissions.

As we enter new markets, we may not be able to successfully attract clients and adapt our technology and marketing strategy for use in those markets.

Our strategy includes leveraging our electronic trading platforms to enter new markets, including new asset classes, products and geographies, including markets where we have little or no operating experience. For example, with the acquisition of Pragma in 2023, we began providing algorithmic trading and quantitative execution solutions in the equities and foreign exchange markets, and in 2025, we completed our acquisition of a majority stake in RFQ-hub, a platform specializing in ETFs and derivatives. We may have difficulties identifying and entering into new markets due to established competitors, lack of recognition of our brand and lack of acceptance of our platforms and solutions, as has occurred with certain of our initiatives in the past.

Expansion, particularly in new geographic markets, may require substantial expenditures and take considerable time. In particular, we may need to make additional investments in management and new personnel, infrastructure and compliance systems. Furthermore, our expansion efforts may divert management’s attention or inefficiently utilize our resources. If we are not able to manage our expansion effectively, our expansion costs could increase at a faster rate than our revenues from these new markets. If we cannot successfully implement the necessary processes to support and manage our expansion, our business, financial condition and results of operations may suffer.

We may not be able to successfully adapt our proprietary software and technology for use in any new markets. Even if we do adapt our products, services and technologies, we may not be able to attract clients to our platforms and compete successfully in any such new markets. Our marketing efforts or our pursuit of any of these opportunities may not be successful. If these efforts are not successful, we may realize less than expected earnings, which in turn could result in a decrease in the market value of our common stock.

We may face increasing challenges in our growing international operations that we may not be able to meet in the future.

We operate electronic trading platforms in Europe, Latin America and Asia and we may further expand our operations throughout these and other regions. We have invested significant resources in our foreign operations and the increasing globalization of our platforms and services. However, there are certain risks inherent in doing business in international markets. These risks include:

• difficulty in obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals for planned expansion, if at all, and the possibility that any approvals that are obtained may impose restrictions on the operation of our business;
• the inability to manage and coordinate the various regulatory requirements of multiple jurisdictions that are constantly evolving and subject to unexpected change;
• difficulties in staffing and managing foreign operations, including our access to and our ability to compete for and hire, skilled employees in both the U.K. and the E.U.;
• less developed technological infrastructures and generally higher costs, which could result in lower client acceptance of our services or clients having difficulty accessing our trading platforms;
• fluctuations in exchange rates;
• reduced or no protection for intellectual property rights;
• seasonal reductions in business activity; and
• potentially adverse tax consequences.

Further, we may face unexpected challenges in our international operations due to global competitors, established local markets, and local economic, political and social conditions, including the possibility of economic slowdowns, hyperinflationary conditions, political instability, social unrest or outbreaks of pandemic or contagious diseases. Our inability to manage these risks effectively could adversely affect our business and limit our ability to expand our international operations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Risks Related to our Operation and Performance of our Business

We are dependent on our broker-dealer clients, who are not restricted from using their own proprietary or third-party platforms to transact with our institutional investor clients.

We rely on our broker-dealer clients to provide liquidity on our electronic trading platforms by posting prices for bonds in their inventory and responding to institutional investor client inquiries. The contractual obligations of our broker-dealer clients to us are minimal, non-exclusive and terminable by such clients. Our broker-dealer clients buy and sell fixed-income securities through traditional methods, including by telephone and instant messaging, and through other electronic trading platforms. Some of our broker-dealer clients have developed electronic trading networks that compete with us or have announced their intention to explore the development of such electronic trading networks, and many of our broker-dealer clients are involved in other ventures, including other electronic trading platforms or other distribution channels, as trading participants and/or as investors. These competing trading platforms may offer some features that we do not currently offer. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that such broker-dealers’ primary commitments will not be to one of our competitors.

Higher capital requirements on trading activity by bank-affiliated broker-dealers may reduce their incentives to engage in certain market making activities and may impair market liquidity. If bank-affiliated broker-dealers reduce their trading activity and that activity is not replaced by other market participants, the level of liquidity and pricing available on our trading platforms would be negatively impacted, which could adversely affect our operating results. In addition, over the past several years, there has been significant consolidation among firms in the banking and financial services industries and several of our large broker-dealer clients have reduced their sales and trading businesses in fixed-income products. Further consolidation, instability, and layoffs in the financial services industry could result in a smaller client base and heightened competition, which may lower volumes.

Any reduction in the use of our electronic trading platforms by our broker-dealer clients could reduce the volume of trading on our platforms, which could, in turn, reduce the use of our platforms by our institutional investor clients. The occurrence of any of the foregoing may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We could lose significant sources of revenue and trading volume if we lose any of our significant institutional investor clients.

We rely on our institutional investor clients to launch inquiries over our trading platforms and, increasingly, to provide liquidity through our Open Trading protocols. A limited number of such clients can account for a significant portion of our trading volume. The obligations of our institutional investor clients to us under our standard contractual agreements are minimal, non-exclusive and terminable by such clients. Our institutional investor clients also buy and sell fixed-income securities through traditional methods, including by telephone and instant messaging, and through other electronic trading platforms.

There can be no assurance that we will be able to retain our major institutional investor clients or that such clients will continue to use our trading platforms. The loss of a major institutional investor client or any reduction in the use of our electronic trading platforms by such clients could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are exposed to risks in connection with certain transactions in which we act as a matched principal intermediary.

In connection with our Open Trading or order routing protocols, we execute certain transactions 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 in trades which are then settled by us or through a third-party clearing broker. 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.

We are exposed to credit and performance risks in our role as matched principal trading counterparty to the clients on our platforms, including the risk that counterparties that owe us money or securities will not perform their obligations. These parties may default on their obligations to us due to bankruptcy, lack of liquidity, operational failure or other reasons. Adverse movements in the prices of securities that are the subject of these transactions can increase our risk. In connection with Open Trading or other anonymous order routing or trading protocols, we expect that the number of transactions in which we act as a matched principal will increase.

In the process of executing matched principal transactions, miscommunications and other errors by our clients or us can arise that involve substantial risks of liability. These risks include, among others, potential liability from disputes over the terms of a trade, the settlement of the trade, or claims that we resolved an error trade dispute incorrectly or that a system malfunction or delay caused monetary loss to a client. In addition, because of the ease and speed with which trades can be executed on our electronic platforms, clients can lose substantial amounts by inadvertently entering trade instructions or by entering trade orders inaccurately. A significant error trade or a large number of error trades could result in participant dissatisfaction and a decline in participant willingness to trade on our platforms. Although we maintain error trade policies designed to protect our anonymous trading participants and enable us to manage the risks attendant in acting as a matched principal counterparty, depending on the cause, number and value of the trades that are the subject of an alleged error or dispute, such trades have the potential to have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if we are required to hold a securities position as a result of an error, there may also be financing costs or regulatory capital charges required to be taken by us.

We have policies, procedures and automated controls in place to identify and manage our credit risk, though there can be no assurance that they will effectively mitigate our credit risk exposure. Some of our risk management procedures are reliant upon the evaluation of information regarding the fixed-income markets, our clients or other relevant matters that are publicly available or otherwise acquired from third-party sources. Such information may not be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly assessed and interpreted by us. If our risk management procedures fail, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected. Furthermore, our insurance policies are unlikely to provide coverage for such risks.

Self-clearing exposes us to significant operational, liquidity, financing and regulatory risks.

We self-clear a significant percentage of our bond transactions and we may expand self-clearing to additional products and regions in the future. Self-clearing requires us to finance transactions and maintain margin deposits at clearing organizations. Self-clearing exposes our business to operational risks, including business and technology disruption; operational inefficiencies; liquidity, financing and regulatory risks; and potentially increased expenses. We have in the past and may in the future also encounter difficulties with self-clearing that lead to operating inefficiencies, technology issues, dissatisfaction amongst our client base, disruption in the infrastructure that supports the business, inadequate liquidity, increased margin requirements with clearing organizations and third-party settlement agents who provide financing with respect to transactions, reductions in available borrowing capacity and financial loss. Any such delay, disruption, expense or failure could adversely affect our ability to effect transactions and manage our exposure to risk. Moreover, any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

We depend on third-party suppliers for key products and services.

We rely on several third parties to supply elements of our trading, information and other systems, as well as computers and other equipment, and related support and maintenance. These providers may not be willing and/or able to continue to provide these services in an efficient, cost-effective manner, if at all; adequately expand their services to meet our needs; or meet the increasing regulatory requirements applicable to certain technology and data services providers to financial institutions. See “Regulatory and Legal Risks – Our business and the trading businesses of many of our clients are subject to increasingly extensive government and other regulation, which may affect our trading volumes and increase our cost of doing business.” If we are unable to make alternative arrangements for the supply of critical products or services in the event of a malfunction of a product or an interruption in or the cessation of service by an existing service provider, including as a result of a cybersecurity incident or other outage at a service provider, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected.

In particular, we depend on third-party vendors for our bond reference databases, the clearing and settlement of certain of our Open Trading transactions, to host our cloud infrastructure and to provide the technology underpinning key portions of our MarketAxess Rates platform. We obtain essential reference data and information services from external sources, including data received from certain competitors, clients, self-regulatory organizations, rating agencies and other third-party data providers. Our reference data sources and information providers could increase the price for or withdraw their data or information services for a variety of reasons. Further, as has occurred in the past, our competitors could revise the current terms on which they provide us with data or information services or could cease providing us with data or information services altogether for a variety of reasons, including competition. Certain third-party services may have limited alternative providers readily available, and disruptions in the services provided by those third-parties to us, including as a result of their inability (due to cybersecurity incidents or otherwise) or unwillingness to continue to license products or provide technology services that are critical to the success of our business, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We also rely, and expect in the future to continue to rely, on third parties for various systems and services, such as communications providers, online service providers, data processors, cloud computing and data centers, cybersecurity service providers, software and hardware vendors. Any interruption in these or other third-party services or deterioration in their performance could impair the quality of our service. We cannot be certain of the financial viability of all of the third parties on which we rely.

We license software from third parties, much of which is integral to our electronic trading platform and our business. We also hire contractors to assist in the development, quality assurance testing and maintenance of our electronic trading platform and other systems. Continued access to these licensors and contractors on favorable contract terms or access to alternative software and information technology contractors is important to our operations. Adverse changes in any of these relationships could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We attempt to negotiate favorable pricing, service, confidentiality and intellectual property ownership or licensing and other terms in our contracts with our third-party service providers. These contracts usually have multi-year terms. However, there is no guarantee that these contracts will not terminate and that we will be able to negotiate successor agreements or agreements with alternate service providers on competitive terms. Further, the existing agreements may bind us for a period of time to terms and technology that become obsolete as our industry and our competitors advance their own operations and use of technology.

If we acquire or invest in other businesses, products or technologies, and are unable to integrate them with our business, our financial performance may be impaired. We may not realize the anticipated financial and strategic goals for any such transactions or any strategic alliances, partnerships or joint ventures, which we may enter into.

From time to time, we may pursue acquisitions, which may not be completed or, if completed, may not be as beneficial to us as expected. We have made acquisitions in the past, including the purchases of the regulatory reporting business of Deutsche Börse in 2020, MuniBrokers in 2021, Pragma in 2023 and a controlling stake in RFQ-hub in 2025. We also may consider potential divestitures of businesses from time to time. We routinely evaluate potential acquisition and divestiture candidates and engage in discussions and negotiations regarding potential acquisitions and divestitures on an ongoing basis; however, even if we execute a definitive agreement, there can be no assurance that we will consummate the transaction within the anticipated closing timeframe, or at all. Moreover, there is significant competition for acquisition and expansion opportunities in the electronic financial services industry.

If we do succeed in acquiring or investing in a business, product or technology, such acquisitions and investments may involve several risks, including:

• we may find that the acquired company or assets do not further our business strategy, or that we overpaid for the company or assets, or the economic conditions underlying our acquisition decision may change;
• we may have difficulty integrating the acquired technologies or products with our existing electronic trading platforms products and services;
• we may have difficulty integrating the operations and personnel of the acquired business, or retaining the key personnel of the acquired business;
• there may be client confusion if our services overlap with those of the acquired company and we may have difficulty retaining key customers, vendors and other business partners of the acquired business;
• our ongoing business and management’s attention may be disrupted or diverted by transition or integration issues and the complexity of managing geographically or culturally diverse enterprises;
• we may enter markets, such as the equities and foreign exchange trading algorithm markets, in which we have limited experience or where competitors hold stronger market positions;
• potential failure of the due diligence processes to identify significant problems, liabilities or other challenges of an acquired company or product; and
• exposure to litigation or other claims in connection with, or inheritance of claims or litigation risk as a result of, an acquisition, including but not limited to, claims from terminated employees, customers, former stockholders or other third parties.

These factors could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows, particularly in the case of a larger acquisition or multiple acquisitions in a short period of time. From time to time, we may enter negotiations for acquisitions or investments that are not ultimately consummated. Such negotiations could result in significant diversion of management time, as well as out-of-pocket costs.

The consideration paid in connection with an investment or acquisition also affects our financial results. If we were to proceed with one or more significant acquisitions in which the consideration included cash, we could be required to use a substantial portion of our available cash to consummate any acquisition. To the extent we issue shares of capital stock or other rights to purchase capital stock, including options or other rights, existing stockholders may be diluted and earnings per share may decrease. In addition, acquisitions may result in the incurrence of debt, large one-time write-offs, such as of acquired in-process research and development costs, and restructuring charges.

We may also enter into strategic alliances, partnerships or joint ventures as a means to accelerate our entry into new markets, provide new solutions or enhance our existing capabilities. Entering into strategic alliances, partnerships and joint ventures entails risks, including:

• difficulties in developing or expanding the business of newly formed alliances, partnerships and joint ventures;
• exercising influence over the activities of joint ventures in which we do not have a controlling interest;
• potential conflicts with or among our partners;
• the possibility that our partners could take action without our approval or prevent us from taking action; and
• the possibility that our partners become bankrupt or otherwise lack the financial resources to meet their obligations.

Failure to retain our senior management team or the inability to attract and retain qualified personnel could materially adversely impact our ability to operate or grow our business.

The success of our business depends upon the skills, experience and efforts of our executive officers and other key personnel. We do not maintain “key person” life insurance on any of our executive officers and other key personnel. Although we have invested in succession planning, any loss or interruption of one or more of our executive officers or key personnel could nevertheless have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Should we lose the services of any such person, we may have to conduct a search for a qualified replacement. This search may be prolonged, and we may not be able to locate and hire a qualified replacement.

Our business also depends on our ability to continue to attract, motivate and retain a large number of highly qualified personnel in order to support our clients and achieve our business results. There is a limited pool of employees who have the requisite skills, training and education. Identifying, recruiting, training, integrating and retaining qualified personnel requires significant time, expense and attention, and the market for qualified personnel, particularly those with experience in technology, clearing and settlement, product management and regulatory compliance, has become more competitive as an increasing number of companies seek to enhance their positions in the markets we serve. In particular, we compete for technology personnel with highly innovative technology companies and large companies focused on technology development both in and outside our industry and our traditional geographic markets. Many of these companies have significant financial resources and more recognizable brands than ours and may be able to offer more attractive employment opportunities and more lucrative compensation packages. Our inability to attract, retain and motivate personnel with the requisite skills could impact our ability to develop new platforms, platform features or solutions, enhance our existing platforms and solutions, grow our client base, enter into new markets, operate under various regulatory frameworks or manage our business effectively.

Economic sanctions levied against states or individuals could expose us to significant operational and regulatory risks.

Sanctions imposed by the United States or other countries in response to conflicts or other geopolitical events could adversely impact the financial markets and the global economy, and any economic countermeasures by the affected countries or others could exacerbate market and economic instability. Our financial position and results of operations may be adversely affected if these sanctions are further expanded or the ongoing war or geopolitical tensions have further adverse effects on the global economy or the participants on our platforms. In addition, any such sanctions may limit our ability to effect transactions in certain instruments on our platforms.

Risks related to climate change or other sustainability risks could adversely affect our operations or reputation.

The risk of climate change or other environmental matters could adversely affect our business. The physical risks of climate change include chronic risks such as rising and changing mean global temperatures, rising sea levels and increased precipitation, as well as acute risks such an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme heat, floods, wildfires, dry days and hurricanes. The impact of such events could increase because of the geographical concentration of our operations and personnel in certain areas of the U.S., which are expected to experience higher risk levels than some other regions. Any of our primary locations or those of third parties on which we rely may be vulnerable to the adverse physical effects of climate change, which could result in risk of loss incurred as a result of physical damage, power outages or business interruption caused by such events.

In addition, certain governments, investors, employees, customers, and the public are focused on sustainability practices and disclosures. Increasing scrutiny from stakeholders and regulators with respect to sustainability matters may impose additional costs and expose us to additional risks. For example, certain investors are incorporating the business risks of climate change and the adequacy of companies’ responses to climate change and other sustainability matters as part of their investment theses and policies. Conversely, there are some stockholders and regulators who have expressed opposing views against sustainability practices, including support for anti-sustainability legislation and policies. For example, certain U.S. states have restricted state-controlled funds from investing based on sustainability factors. Our reputation could be adversely impacted by our sustainability practices and sustainability disclosures or investor perceptions thereof, including if we fail to establish measurable environmental goals or subsequently fail to meet any such goals or if we are perceived to have not responded appropriately to the growing concern for sustainability or climate issues. Any negative publicity we receive regarding sustainability, low sustainability scores or ratings, or shifts in investing priorities may adversely affect the trading price of our common stock or our business, operations and earnings. Finally, we could experience increased operating costs or capital expenditures associated with complying with new disclosure-based or emissions-reduction requirements.

Technology, Cybersecurity and Intellectual Property Risks

Rapid market or technological changes may render our technology obsolete or decrease the attractiveness of our products and services to our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients.

We must continue to enhance and improve our electronic trading platforms. The electronic financial services industry is characterized by significant structural changes, increasingly complex systems and infrastructures, changes in clients’ needs and preferences, constant competition and new business models. If new industry standards and practices emerge and our competitors release new technology before us, our existing technology, systems and electronic trading platforms may become obsolete and our existing business may be harmed. Our future success will depend on our ability to:

• enhance and innovate our existing products and services;
• develop and/or license new products and technologies that address the increasingly sophisticated and varied needs of our clients and prospective clients;
• continue to attract and retain highly-skilled technology personnel; and
• respond to technological advances and emerging industry standards and practices on a cost-effective and timely basis.

Developing our electronic trading platforms and other technology entails significant technical and business risks and expenses. We may use new technologies ineffectively or we may fail to adapt our existing technologies to meet broker-dealer or institutional investor client requirements or emerging industry or regulatory standards. If we face material delays in introducing new services, products and enhancements, such as X-Pro, our clients may forego the use of our platforms and use those of our competitors. In addition, we have incurred significant expenses on technology in the past and such expenses are expected to continue in the future. Some of these investments have generated, and may continue to generate, limited revenues and have reduced, and may continue to reduce, our operating margin. If our investments are not successful longer-term, our business and financial performance may be harmed.

Further, the adoption of new internet, networking, cloud, telecommunications, machine learning, AI or blockchain technologies may require us to devote substantial resources to modify and adapt our services. We may not be able to successfully implement new technologies or adapt our proprietary technology and transaction-processing systems to client requirements or emerging industry or regulatory standards. We may not be able to respond in a timely manner to changing market conditions or client requirements.

Issues related to the development and use of AI may result in reputational harm, liability, or other adverse consequences to our business operations.

We use AI technologies in our business, including in certain of our product offerings, and we are making investments in expanding AI capabilities in our products and tools. AI technologies are complex, and generative and agentic AI technologies, in particular, are rapidly evolving. The introduction of AI technologies, including generative and agentic AI, into new or existing products or our internal business processes may result in new or enhanced governmental or regulatory scrutiny, additional compliance costs, confidentiality or security risks, privacy concerns, ethical challenges, or other complications that could adversely affect our business, reputation, or financial results.

In addition, the intellectual property ownership and license rights surrounding AI technologies are currently not fully addressed by courts or regulators. The use or adoption of AI technologies in our products or internal business services may result in exposure to claims by third parties of copyright infringement or other intellectual property misappropriation. Such use or adoption could also lead to the loss of our intellectual property rights. The evolving legal, regulatory, and compliance framework for AI technologies may also impact our ability to protect our own data and intellectual property against infringing use, and we may need to develop or deploy additional protections and safeguards for handling the use of customer and proprietary data with such technologies.

We also rely on third-party AI suppliers for certain tools and services, which may introduce risks related to transparency, supply chain security or our ability to monitor and control external AI models. Failures, errors, or disruptions in AI systems, whether developed internally or provided by third parties, could result in operational disruption or impact our critical business processes.

If our AI development, deployment or governance is ineffective or inadequate, it may result in competitive disadvantage, reputational harm, liability, or other adverse consequences to our business operations.

Our success depends on maintaining the integrity and capacity of our electronic trading platforms, systems and infrastructure.

To be successful, we must provide reliable, secure, real-time access to our electronic trading platforms for our clients. If our trading platforms cannot cope, or expand to cope, with demand, or otherwise fail to perform, we could experience disruptions in service, slow delivery times and insufficient capacity. We have had disruptions of service in the past, and could have additional disruptions in the future, that may lead to our clients deciding to stop using or reduce their use of our platforms, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As our operations grow in both size, complexity and scope, we will need to continually improve and upgrade our electronic trading platforms and infrastructure to accommodate potential increases in order message volume and trading volume, the trading practices of new and existing clients, regulatory changes and the development of new and enhanced trading platform features, functionalities and ancillary products and services. The expansion of our electronic trading platforms and infrastructure has required, and will continue to require, substantial financial, operational and technical resources. These resources will typically need to be committed well in advance of any actual increase in trading volumes and order messages. Our estimates of future trading volumes and order messages may not be accurate and our systems may not be able to accommodate actual trading volumes and order messages without failure or degradation of performance. Furthermore, we use new technologies to upgrade our established systems, and the development of these new technologies also entails technical, financial and business risks. We may not successfully implement new technologies or adapt our existing electronic trading platforms, technology and systems to the requirements of our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients or to emerging industry standards. The inability of our electronic trading platforms to accommodate increasing trading volume and order messages would also constrain our ability to expand our business.

System failures, interruptions, delays in service, catastrophic events and resulting interruptions in the availability of our trading platforms could materially harm our business and reputation.

Our business depends on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of our trading platforms, systems, networks and infrastructure. We, or our third-party providers, may experience system failures or business interruptions in the future, as has occurred from time-to-time in the past. Our systems, networks, infrastructure and other operations, in particular our trading platforms, are vulnerable to impact or interruption from a wide variety of causes, including:

• irregular or heavy use of our trading platforms during peak trading times or at times of increased market volatility;
• power, internet or telecommunications failures;
• hardware failures or software errors;
• human error, acts of vandalism or sabotage;
• catastrophic events, including those that are occurring with increasing frequency due to climate change such as natural disasters and extreme weather events;
• acts of war or terrorism;
• malicious cyberattacks or cyber incidents, such as unauthorized access, ransomware, loss or destruction of data, computer viruses or other malicious code; and
• the loss or failure of systems over which we have no control, such as loss of support services from critical third-party providers.

Failures of, or significant interruptions, delays or disruptions to our systems, networks or infrastructure have in the past, and could in the future, result in:

• disruption to our operations, including disruptions in service to our clients;
• slower response times;
• distribution of untimely or inaccurate market data to clients who rely on this data for their trades;
• delays in trade execution; incomplete or inaccurate accounting, recording or processing of trades;
• significant expense to repair, replace or remediate systems, networks or infrastructure;
• financial losses and liabilities to clients;
• loss of clients; or
• legal or regulatory claims, proceedings, penalties or fines.

Any system failure or significant interruption, delay or disruption in our operations, or decreases in the responsiveness of our platforms, could materially harm our reputation and business and lead our clients to decrease or cease their use of our platforms. We internally support and maintain many of our systems and networks, including those underlying our trading platforms; however, we may not have sufficient personnel to properly respond to all systems, networks or infrastructure problems. Our failure to monitor or maintain our systems, networks and infrastructure, including those maintained or supported by our third-party providers, or to find a replacement for defective or obsolete components within our systems, networks and infrastructure in a timely and cost-effective manner when necessary, would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

While we generally have disaster recovery and business continuity plans in place for much of our business, including redundant systems, networks, computer software and hardware and data centers to address interruption to our normal course of business, our systems, networks and infrastructure may not always be fully redundant and our disaster recovery and business continuity plans may not always be sufficient or effective. Similarly, although some contracts with our third-party providers require adequate disaster recovery or business continuity capabilities, we cannot be certain that these will be adequate or implemented properly. Our disaster recovery and business continuity plans are heavily reliant on the availability of cloud service providers, internet and mobile phone technology, so any disruption of those systems may affect our ability to recover promptly from a crisis situation. If we are unable to execute our disaster recovery and business continuity plans, or if our plans prove insufficient for a particular situation or take longer than expected to implement in a crisis situation, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations, and our business interruption insurance may not adequately compensate us for losses that may occur.

If we experience design defects, errors, failures or delays with our platforms, products or services, our business could suffer serious harm.

Our platforms, products and services, including our automated and algorithmic trading solutions, data products and indices, may contain design defects and errors that cause them to operate incorrectly or less effectively. To the extent that any such product or service, or the Company as a whole, suffers a reputational or credibility loss, including due to a design defect or error, it could have a material adverse impact on our business. Many of our protocols also rely on data and services provided by third-party providers over which we have limited or no control and may be provided to us with defects, errors or failures. Our clients may also use our platforms, products or services together with their own software, data or products from other companies. As a result, when problems occur, it might be difficult to identify their source.

If design defects, errors or failures are discovered in our current or future platforms, protocols or products, we may not be able to correct or work around them in a cost-effective or timely manner or at all. The existence of design defects, errors, failures or delays that are significant, or are perceived to be significant, could also result in rejection or delay in market acceptance of our platforms or protocols, damage to our reputation, loss of clients and related revenues, diversion of resources, product liability claims, regulatory actions or increases in costs, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Malicious cyber-attacks, attempted cybersecurity breaches, and other adverse events affecting our operational systems or infrastructure, or those of third parties, could disrupt our businesses, result in the disclosure of confidential information, cause system unavailability, damage our reputation and cause losses or regulatory penalties.

The operation of our electronic trading platforms relies on the secure processing, storage and transmission of a large amount of transactional data and other confidential sensitive data (including confidential client and personal information). Our computer systems, software and networks (or those of our third-party vendors, including cloud service providers) may be vulnerable to unauthorized access, loss or destruction of data (including confidential and personal customer information), ransomware, unavailability or disruption of service, computer viruses, acts of vandalism, or other malicious code, cyber-attack and other harmful events that could have an adverse security impact. Further, as AI technologies, including generative and agentic AI models develop rapidly, bad actors may use these technologies to create new sophisticated attack methods that are increasingly automated, targeted and coordinated and more difficult to defend against.

We deploy measures that seek to protect, detect, respond and recover from cyber threats, including identity and access controls, data protection, vulnerability management, incident response, secure product development, continuous monitoring of our networks, endpoints and systems, and maintenance of backup and recovery capabilities. It is possible that such layered defensive measures will not be successful in mitigating a cybersecurity event.

Despite the defensive measures we have taken, 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 last three years. These events may arise from external factors such as governments, organized crime, hackers, and other third parties such as infrastructure-support providers and application developers, or may originate internally from an employee or service provider to whom we have granted access to our computer systems. If our security measures are breached as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance or otherwise, and, as a result, someone obtains unauthorized access to trading or other confidential or personal information, our reputation could be damaged, our business would suffer and we could incur material liability. Any such breach could compromise our networks and the information stored there could be accessed, publicly disclosed, lost or stolen. Because techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage computer systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures.

Our business also depends on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of our platforms, systems, networks and infrastructure. Any failure of, or significant interruption, delay or disruption to, our systems, networks or infrastructure due to a ransomware attack or other cyber-attack could result in: disruption to our operations, including disruptions in service to our clients; slower response times; distribution of untimely or inaccurate market data to clients who rely on this data for their trades; delays in trade execution; incomplete or inaccurate accounting, recording or processing of trades; significant expense to repair, replace or remediate systems, networks or infrastructure; financial losses and liabilities to clients; loss of clients; and legal or regulatory claims, proceedings, penalties or fines. We also face these risks of operational disruption, failure or capacity constraints of any of the third-party service providers that facilitate our business activities, including clients, clearing and settlement agents and trading system software, network or data providers. Such parties could also be the source of a cyber-attack on or breach of our operational systems, data or infrastructure. Increased flexibility for our employees to work remotely has amplified certain risks related to, among other things, the increased demand on our information technology resources and systems, the increased risk of phishing and other cybersecurity attacks, and the increased number of points of possible attack, such as laptops and mobile devices (both of which are now being used in increased numbers), to be secured. Any system failure or significant interruption, delay or disruption in our operations, or decreases in the responsiveness of our platforms, could materially harm our reputation and business and lead our clients to decrease or cease their use of our trading platform.

There have been an increasing number of cyber-attacks in recent years in various industries, including ours, and cybersecurity risk management has been the subject of increasing focus by our regulators. Our regulators have increased their examination and enforcement focus on matters relating to cybersecurity threats, including the assessment of firms’ vulnerability to cyber-attacks. In particular, regulatory concerns have been raised about firms establishing effective cybersecurity governance and risk management policies, practices and procedures; protecting firm networks and information; identifying and addressing risks associated with clients, vendors, and other third parties; preventing and detecting unauthorized activities; adopting effective mitigation and business resiliency plans to address the impact of cybersecurity breaches; and establishing protocols for reporting cybersecurity incidents. Any insurance that we have that may cover all or a portion of a specific cybersecurity incident would not protect us from the effects of adverse regulatory actions that may result from the incident or a finding that we had inadequate cybersecurity controls, including the reputational harm that could result from such regulatory actions.

Our remediation costs and lost revenues could be significant if we fall victim to a cyber-attack. If an actual, threatened or perceived breach of our security occurs, the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures could be harmed and could cause our clients to reduce or stop their use of our electronic trading platforms. We may be required to expend significant resources to repair system damage, negotiate a ransom, protect against the threat of future security breaches or to alleviate problems, including reputational harm, loss of clients and revenues and litigation, caused by any breaches. We may be found liable to our clients for any misappropriated confidential or personal information. Although we intend to continue to implement industry-standard security measures and best practices, such measures may not be sufficient.

Our actual or perceived failure to comply with privacy and data protection laws, regulations, and obligations could harm our business.

Privacy and data protection is subject to frequently changing rules and regulations in countries where we do business. For example, we are subject to the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) and the U.K. equivalent as well as other laws and regulations, which require us to comply with requirements regarding the handling and retention of personal data, including laws in relation to cookies and tracking technologies, irrespective of whether the processing of data takes place within the E.U. or not. We are also subject to certain U.S. federal, state and foreign laws governing the protection of personal privacy and data in those jurisdictions. These laws and regulations are increasing in complexity and number. In addition, many jurisdictions have enacted or are considering laws requiring companies to notify individuals and/or regulators of data security breaches involving their personal data.

As the privacy and data protection landscapes continue to trend in favor of increasing regulation and compliance our efforts to comply have and could in the future entail substantial expense and may divert resources from other initiatives. Additionally, our own compliance with applicable law and regulation depends, in certain circumstances, on the continued compliance of our third-party providers. Any failure or perceived failure by us to comply with any of our obligations relating to privacy and data protection may result in governmental investigations or enforcement actions, litigation, claims or reputational damage.

We may not be able to protect our intellectual property rights or technology effectively, which would allow competitors to duplicate or replicate our electronic trading platforms or any of our other current or future functionalities, products or services. This could adversely affect our ability to compete.

Intellectual property is critical to our success and ability to compete, and if we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, our competitors might gain access to our technology. We rely primarily on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws in the United States and other jurisdictions, as well as license agreements, third-party non-disclosure and other agreements and other contractual provisions and technical measures to protect our intellectual property rights. We attempt to negotiate beneficial intellectual property ownership provisions in our contracts and also require employees, consultants, advisors and collaborators to enter into confidentiality agreements in order to protect the confidentiality of our proprietary information. We have been issued several patents covering aspects of our technology and/or business, but can give no assurances that any such patents will protect our business and processes from competition or that any patents applied for in the future will be issued. Additionally, laws and our contractual terms may not be sufficient to protect our technology from use or theft by third parties, particularly with respect to the evolving use of AI technologies. These protections may not be adequate to prevent our competitors from independently developing technologies that are substantially equivalent or superior to our technology.

We may have legal or contractual rights that we could assert against illegal use of our intellectual property rights, but lawsuits claiming infringement or misappropriation are complex and expensive, and the outcome would not be certain. In addition, the laws of some countries in which we now or in the future provide our services may not protect software and intellectual property rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States. Furthermore, intellectual property ownership and license rights surrounding AI technologies are currently not fully addressed by courts or regulators. The use or adoption of AI technologies in our products or internal business services may result in exposure to claims by third parties of copyright infringement or other intellectual property misappropriation. Such use or adoption could also lead to the loss of our intellectual property rights. The evolving legal, regulatory, and compliance framework for AI technologies may also impact our ability to protect our own data and intellectual property against infringing use. If our efforts to secure, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights are inadequate, or if any third party misappropriates, dilutes or infringes on our intellectual property, the value of our brand may be harmed, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Defending against intellectual property infringement or other claims could be expensive and disruptive to our business. If we are found to infringe the proprietary rights of others, we could be required to redesign our technology, pay royalties or enter into license agreements with third parties.

In the technology industry, there is frequent litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. As the number of participants in our market increases and the number of patents and other intellectual property registrations increases, the possibility of an intellectual property claim against us grows. Although we have never been the subject of a material intellectual property dispute, a third party may assert in the future that our technology or the manner in which we operate our business violates its intellectual property rights. From time to time, in the ordinary course of our business, we may become subject to legal proceedings and claims relating to the intellectual property rights of others, and we expect that third parties may assert intellectual property claims against us, particularly as we expand the complexity and scope of our business, the number of electronic trading platforms increases and the functionality of these platforms further overlaps. Any claims, whether with or without merit, could be expensive and time-consuming to defend, make it more difficult to operate or prevent us from operating our business, or portions of our business, and result in significant monetary liability.

Third parties may assert infringement claims against us, as they have done in the past, with respect to our electronic trading platforms or any of our other current or future products or services and any such assertion may require us to cease providing such services or products, try to redesign our products or services, enter into royalty arrangements, if available, or engage in litigation that could be costly to us. Any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our use of open-source software could result in litigation or require us to re-engineer our platforms or other commercial solutions.

We use open-source software in our technology, most often as small components within a larger solution. Open-source code is also contained in some third-party software we rely on. The terms of many open source licenses are ambiguous and have not been interpreted by U.S. or other courts, and these licenses could be construed in a manner that imposes unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our platforms and solutions, license the software on unfavorable terms, require us to re-engineer our platforms and solutions or take other remedial actions, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Regulatory and Legal Risks

We operate in a highly regulated industry and we may face restrictions with respect to the way we conduct certain of our operations.

Our business is subject to increasingly extensive governmental and other regulations. These regulations are designed to protect public interests generally rather than the interests of our stockholders. The SEC, FINRA and other agencies extensively regulate the United States financial services industry, including most of our operations in the United States. Much of our international operations are subject to similar regulations in their respective jurisdictions, including regulations overseen by the FCA in the U.K., the AFM in the Netherlands, ESMA in the E.U., the MAS in Singapore, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada and provincial regulators in Canada, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and Central Bank in Brazil. In addition, our regulatory reporting business is registered as an ARM and APA with the FCA and ESMA. We also hold several cross-border licenses and permissions with various other regulatory bodies. See Part I, Item 1. “Business – Government Regulation – Non-U.S. Regulation.”

As a matter of public policy, these regulatory bodies are responsible for safeguarding the integrity of the securities and other financial markets and protecting the interests of investors in those markets. These regulatory bodies have broad powers to promulgate and interpret, investigate and sanction non-compliance with their laws, rules and regulations. Most aspects of our broker-dealer and other licensed subsidiaries are highly regulated, including the way we deal with our clients; our capital requirements; our financial and regulatory reporting practices; required record-keeping and record retention procedures; the licensing of our employees; and the conduct of our directors, officers, employees and affiliates.

We and/or our directors, officers and employees may not be able to fully comply with these laws, rules and regulations. If we fail to comply with any of these laws, rules or regulations, we may be subject to censure, fines, cease-and-desist orders, suspension of our business, suspensions of personnel or other sanctions, including revocation of our membership in FINRA and registration as a broker-dealer.

Certain of our regulated subsidiaries, including our registered broker-dealers and MTFs, are subject to U.S. or foreign regulations which prohibit repayment of borrowings from us or our affiliates, paying cash dividends, making loans to us or our affiliates or otherwise entering into transactions that result in a significant reduction in regulatory net capital or financial resources, without prior notification to or approval from such subsidiary’s principal regulator.

Our ability to operate our platforms in a jurisdiction may be dependent on continued registration or authorization in that jurisdiction or the maintenance of a proper exemption from such registration or authorization. Our ability to comply with all applicable laws and rules is largely dependent on our compliance, credit approval, audit and reporting systems and procedures, as well as our ability to attract and retain qualified compliance, credit approval, audit and risk management personnel. Our systems and procedures may not be sufficiently effective to prevent a violation of all applicable rules and regulations. In addition, the growth and expansion of our business may create additional strain on our compliance systems, procedures and personnel and has resulted, and we expect will continue to result, in increased costs to maintain and improve these systems.

In addition, because our industry is heavily regulated, regulatory approval may be required in order to continue or expand our business activities and we may not be able to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals on a timely or cost-effective basis, or at all. Even if approvals are obtained, they may impose restrictions on our business or we may not be able to continue to comply with the terms of the approvals or applicable regulations. The implementation of unfavorable regulations or unfavorable interpretations of existing regulations by courts or regulatory bodies could require us to incur significant compliance costs or cause the development or continuation of business activities in affected markets to be curtailed or become impractical. For a further description of the regulations which may limit our activities, see Part I, Item 1. “Business—Government Regulation.”

Some of our subsidiaries are subject to regulations regarding changes in control of their ownership. These regulations generally provide that regulatory approval must be obtained in connection with any transaction resulting in a change in control of the subsidiary, which may include changes in control of MarketAxess. As a result of these regulations, our future efforts to sell shares or raise additional capital may be delayed or prohibited in circumstances in which such a transaction would give rise to a change in control as defined by the applicable regulatory body.

Our business and the trading businesses of many of our clients are subject to increasingly extensive government and other regulation, which may affect our trading volumes and increase our cost of doing business.

Our business, and the business of many of our clients, is subject to extensive regulation. Governmental and regulatory authorities periodically review legislative and regulatory initiatives, and may promulgate new or revised, or adopt changes in the interpretation and enforcement of existing, rules and regulations at any time. In addition, we must comply with the laws, regulations and registration rules of foreign governments and regulatory bodies for each country in which we conduct business. Any such changes in laws, rules or regulations or in governmental policies could create additional regulatory exposure for our business, cause us to incur significant additional costs, require us to change or cease aspects of our business or restrict or limit our ability to grow our business, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. For example, DORA, which focuses on the security of network and information systems of financial services entities and ICTs, 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. Further, regulators are increasingly looking to regulate use of advanced data processing technologies such as AI or machine learning, which may impact our operations as well as our products that incorporate such technologies.

The SEC 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, 2026. Once effective, this central clearing mandate will impact certain of our participants who do not centrally clear such trades today. 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.

There have been in the past, and could be in the future, additional significant technological, operational and compliance costs associated with the obligations that derive from compliance with evolving laws, rules and regulations. For example, Brexit continues to drive increasing regulatory divergence between the two jurisdictions, introducing operational complexity and new barriers to cross-border trading. We expect the cost and complexity of complying with diverging E.U. and U.K. financial regulations will continue to increase following the implementation of the amendments to the FSMA in the U.K., the MiFIR Review and DORA. Any such legal and regulatory changes could affect us in substantial and unpredictable ways, and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We cannot predict whether additional changes to the laws, rules and regulations that govern our business and operations, including changes to their interpretation, implementation or enforcement, will occur in the future or the extent to which any such changes will impact our business and operations, but they may cause us to expend significantly more compliance, business and technology resources, incur additional operational costs and create additional regulatory exposure.

The extensive regulation of our business means we have ongoing exposure to potentially significant costs and penalties.

Our businesses are subject to regulation by governmental and self-regulatory organizations in the jurisdictions in which we operate around the world. Many of these regulators, including U.S. and non-U.S. government agencies and self-regulatory organizations, as well as state securities commissions in the U.S., are empowered to bring enforcement actions and to conduct administrative proceedings and examinations, inspections, and investigations, which may result in costs, penalties, fines, enhanced oversight, additional requirements, restrictions, or limitations, and censure, suspension, or expulsion. Self-regulatory organizations such as FINRA and the NFA, along with statutory bodies, such as the SEC, the CFTC, the FCA, the AFM and ESMA and other international regulators, require strict compliance with their rules and regulations.

We and other firms in the financial services industry have experienced increased scrutiny in recent years, and penalties, fines and other sanctions sought by regulatory authorities, including the SEC, FINRA, state securities commissions and state attorney generals in the U.S., and the FCA, ESMA and other international regulators, have increased accordingly. Accordingly, we face the risk of regulatory intervention, investigations and proceedings, particularly in emerging markets, where securities laws are developing, any of which could involve extensive scrutiny of our activities and result in significant fines and liability. Any of these developments would require significant time and financial resources and could adversely affect our reputation, financial condition and operating results.

We are subject to the risks of litigation and securities laws liability.

Many aspects of our business, and the businesses of our clients, involve substantial risks of liability. Dissatisfied clients may make claims against us regarding quality of trade execution, improperly settled trades, resolution of trade error claims, system failures, failure to protect their confidential or personal information or mismanagement. We may become subject to these claims as the result of delays, failures or malfunctions of our electronic trading platform and the services provided by us. We could incur significant legal expenses defending claims, even those without merit. An adverse resolution of any lawsuits or claims against us could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If our tax filing positions were to be challenged by federal, state and local, or foreign tax jurisdictions, we may not be wholly successful in defending our tax filing positions.

Management exercises significant judgment when assessing the probability of successfully sustaining tax filing positions, and in determining whether a contingent tax liability should be recorded and, if so, estimating the amount. If our tax filing positions are successfully challenged, payments could be required that are in excess of reserved amounts, if any, or we may be required to reduce the carrying amount of our net deferred tax asset, either of which result could be significant to our financial condition or results of operations.

Liquidity and Funding Risks

We cannot predict our future capital needs or our ability to obtain additional financing if we need it.

Our business is dependent upon the availability of adequate funding and regulatory capital under applicable regulatory requirements. The growth of our Open Trading protocols, in particular, is dependent on the willingness of our customers and counterparties to engage in transactions with us and any perceived issues with our capital levels or access to funding could have a material adverse effect on business. As a result of our self-clearing and settlement activities, we are also 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. Although we believe that our available cash resources and borrowing capacity under our credit agreement are sufficient to meet our presently anticipated liquidity needs and capital expenditure requirements for at least the next 12 months, we may in the future need to raise additional funds to, among other things: (1) support more rapid growth of our business; (2) finance transactions and maintain margin deposits at clearing organizations; (3) acquire complementary companies or technologies; (4) increase the regulatory net capital necessary to support our operations; or (5) respond to unanticipated or changing capital requirements.

In addition, our liquidity could be impaired due to circumstances that we may be unable to control, such as a general market disruption or an operational problem that affects our trading customers or counterparties, other third parties or us.

All or part of any debt financing could be pursuant to the terms of our credit agreements with third-party lenders, which include restrictive covenants with respect to dividends, issuances of additional capital and other financial and operational matters related to our business.

In the future, we may not be able to obtain additional financing, if needed, in amounts or on terms acceptable to us, if at all. If sufficient funds are not available or are not available on terms acceptable to us, our ability to fund our expansion, finance transactions and maintain margin deposits at clearing organizations, take advantage of acquisition opportunities, develop or enhance our services or products, or otherwise respond to competitive pressures would be significantly limited. These limitations could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our credit agreement contains restrictive and financial covenants that could limit our operating flexibility, and we may incur additional debt in the future that may include similar or additional restrictions.

We are party to a credit agreement that provides for revolving loans and letters of credit up to an aggregate of $750.0 million. Subject to the satisfaction of certain specified conditions, we are permitted to upsize the borrowing capacity of the credit agreement by an additional $375.0 million. Our credit agreement contains certain covenants that, among other things, may restrict our ability to take certain actions, even if we believe them to be in our best interests. These covenants may restrict or prohibit, among other things, our ability to:

• incur or guarantee additional debt;
• create or incur liens;
• change our line of business;
• sell or transfer assets;
• make certain investments or acquisitions;
• pay dividends or distributions, redeem or repurchase our equity or make certain other restricted payments;
• consummate a merger or consolidation;
• enter into certain swap, derivative or similar transactions;
• enter into certain transactions with affiliates; and
• incur restrictions on our ability to grant liens or, in the case of subsidiaries, pay dividends or other distributions.

We are also required by our credit agreement to maintain a maximum consolidated total net leverage ratio and a minimum regulatory net capital balance for certain subsidiaries. We may not be able to meet these requirements or satisfy these covenants in the future. A breach of any of these covenants or the inability to comply with the required financial covenants could result in an event of default under the credit agreement. If any such event of default occurs, the lenders under the credit agreement could elect to declare all amounts outstanding and accrued and unpaid interest under the credit agreement to be immediately due and payable, and could foreclose on the assets securing the credit agreement. The lenders would also have the right in these circumstances to terminate any commitments they have to provide further credit extensions. We may incur other indebtedness in the future that may contain financial or other covenants more restrictive than those applicable to the credit agreement.

We maintain our cash at financial institutions, often in balances that exceed federally insured limits.

We regularly maintain cash balances with other financial institutions in excess of the FDIC insurance limit. A failure of any of the depository institutions that hold our deposits could impact access to our invested cash or cash equivalents and could adversely impact our operating liquidity and financial performance.

As a global technology company, and the provider of electronic trading platforms and solutions for fixed-income and other securities, we view cybersecurity as fundamental to our business. Accordingly, we aim to appropriately secure all of our business operations, including information that we generate in the performance of our services, and data provided to us by third parties, including clients, vendors, business partners and employees.

Risk Management and Strategy

The Company has adopted an Enterprise Risk and Resilience Framework (the “ERRF”) to identify, assess, monitor, and manage the Company’s risks, including cybersecurity risks. Our Chief Risk Officer (the “CRO”) is responsible for implementing and executing the ERRF. The Company’s information security and cybersecurity team is staffed with skilled professionals who manage the safeguarding of our information and is led by our Chief Information Security Officer (the “CISO”). This team is responsible for aligning our practices with the requirements of local regulations and the voluntary standards to which we strive to adhere, such as ISO/IEC 27001 and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) Cybersecurity Framework.

The Company’s cybersecurity policies, standards, processes and practices are fully integrated into the Company’s ERRF and are based on recognized frameworks established by NIST, the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) and other applicable industry standards. In general, the Company seeks to address cybersecurity risks through a comprehensive, cross-functional approach that is focused on preserving the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information that the Company collects and stores by identifying, preventing and mitigating cybersecurity threats and effectively responding to cybersecurity incidents when they occur.

As one of the critical elements of the Company’s overall ERRF approach, the Company’s cybersecurity program is focused on the following key areas:

• Governance: As discussed below in more detail under the heading “The Board’s Oversight of Cybersecurity Risk,” the Board’s oversight of cybersecurity risk management is supported by the Risk Committee of the Board (the “Risk Committee”), which regularly interacts with the Company’s Chief Operating Officer, CRO, CISO and other members of management.
• Collaborative Approach: The Company has implemented a comprehensive, cross-functional approach to identification, protection, detection, response and recovery from cybersecurity threats and incidents, while also implementing controls and procedures that are designed to provide for the prompt escalation of certain cybersecurity incidents so that decisions regarding the public disclosure and reporting of such incidents can be made by management in a timely manner.
• Technical Safeguards: The Company deploys layered technical safeguards that are designed to protect the Company’s information systems from cybersecurity threats, including firewalls, intrusion prevention and detection systems, anti-malware functionality and access controls, which are evaluated and improved through vulnerability assessments and cybersecurity threat intelligence.
• Incident Response and Recovery Planning: The Company has established and maintains its Information Security Incident Management Policy that addresses the Company’s response to a cybersecurity incident, and such policy is tested and evaluated on a regular basis. The policy applies to all full- and part-time employees and contractors. The goal of the policy is to restore normal service operation as quickly as possible following an event, provide timely and accurate information to relevant stakeholders regarding such an event, as appropriate, and minimize the impact of such an event on our business operations. The policy is designed to ensure that we are meeting both our contractual and regulatory requirements related to cybersecurity events.
• Data Collection, Use, Processing and Monitoring: The Company maintains policies and procedures relating to our data collection, use and processing activities, as well as mechanisms for monitoring our data systems and usage. We do not have individual retail clients and any gathering and maintaining of individual consumer data is very limited. We seek to maintain compliance with global data protection laws in the countries in which we operate, including the GDPR, the U.K. Data Protection regime and the California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA”).
• Third-Party Risk Management: The Company maintains a comprehensive, risk-based approach to identifying and overseeing cybersecurity risks presented by third parties, including vendors, service providers and other external users of the Company’s systems, as well as the systems of third parties that could adversely impact our business in the event of a cybersecurity incident affecting those third-party systems.
• Education and Awareness: The Company provides regular, mandatory training for personnel regarding cybersecurity threats in order to equip the Company’s personnel with effective tools to address cybersecurity threats, and to communicate the Company’s evolving information security policies, standards, processes and practices. In addition, the Company provides regular, mandatory training for personnel regarding key data privacy laws and the appropriate collection, use and storage of data.

We periodically assess and test our policies, standards, processes and practices that are designed to address cybersecurity threats and incidents. These efforts include a wide range of activities, including audits, assessments, tabletop exercises, vulnerability testing and other exercises focused on evaluating the effectiveness of our cybersecurity measures and planning. The Company regularly engages third parties to perform assessments on our cybersecurity measures, including information security maturity assessments, audits and independent reviews of our information security control environment and operating effectiveness. The results of such assessments, audits and reviews are reported, as appropriate, to the Risk Committee, and the Company adjusts its cybersecurity policies, standards, processes and practices as necessary based on the information provided by these assessments, audits and reviews.

We experience cybersecurity threats and incidents from time to time. However, as of the date of this report, we have not experienced a cybersecurity threat or incident that has materially affected the Company, including our business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition, in at least the last three years. While we are not currently aware of any risks from cybersecurity threats that are reasonably likely to materially affect the Company, please see Part I, Item 1A. – “Risk Factors – Malicious cyber-attacks, attempted cybersecurity breaches, and other adverse events affecting our operational systems or infrastructure, or those of third parties, could disrupt our businesses, result in the disclosure of confidential information, damage our reputation and cause losses or regulatory penalties.”

The Board’s Oversight of Cybersecurity Risk

The Board recognizes the critical importance of maintaining the trust and confidence of our clients, business partners and employees. The Board is actively involved in oversight of the Company’s ERRF, and cybersecurity represents an important component of the Company’s overall approach to enterprise risk management. The Board is responsible for overseeing the Company’s risk management processes over the short-, medium- and long-term by staying informed of the Company’s material risks and evaluating whether management has reasonable controls in place to address such material risks. As part of its oversight responsibilities, the Board dedicates meaningful time and attention to oversight of cybersecurity risk. The Board is not responsible, however, for defining or managing the Company’s various risks. See “Management’s Involvement in Cybersecurity Risk Oversight” below.

The Board and its committees oversee risk through regular reports from management. The Board’s committees report on the matters discussed at the committee level to the full Board. The Risk Committee has primary responsibility for cybersecurity oversight. In that capacity, the Risk Committee receives quarterly presentations and reports, as well as additional updates as needed, on cybersecurity matters. Such updates address a wide range of topics including recent developments, evolving standards, vulnerability assessments, third-party and independent reviews, external threat intelligence, technological trends and cybersecurity considerations arising with respect to the Company’s peers and third parties. The Board and the Risk Committee also receive prompt and timely information regarding any cybersecurity incident that meets established internal escalation thresholds, as well as ongoing updates regarding any such incident until it has been addressed.

Management’s Involvement in Cybersecurity Risk Oversight

The CISO, in coordination with the Company’s management risk committee, works collaboratively across the Company to implement a program designed to protect the Company’s information systems from cybersecurity threats and to promptly respond to any cybersecurity incidents in accordance with the Company’s incident response and recovery plans. To facilitate the success of the Company’s cybersecurity risk management program, multidisciplinary teams throughout the Company are deployed to address cybersecurity threats and to respond to cybersecurity incidents. Through ongoing communications with these teams, the CISO and the management risk committee monitor the prevention, detection, mitigation and remediation of cybersecurity threats and incidents in real time, and report such threats and incidents to the Risk Committee and/or the full Board when appropriate.

The CISO holds undergraduate and masters’ degrees in computer science and cybersecurity, respectively, and has served in various senior roles in information technology and information security for over 20 years, including previously serving as the Chief Information Security Officer of a major global asset manager. The CISO has attained the professional certification of Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC). The Company’s CRO holds an undergraduate degree and has over 30 years of experience managing risks, including risks arising from cybersecurity threats.

The Company is ISO/IEC 27001:2012 certified, which is a global standard that specifies the requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving information security management systems. Additionally, we have received an independent examination regarding our compliance with SOC 2 Type 2.

Our corporate headquarters and principal U.S. office is located at 55 Hudson Yards in New York, New York, where we lease approximately 83,000 square feet under a lease expiring in August 2034. We also collectively lease approximately 50,000 square feet for our other office locations in jurisdictions including the U.S., United Kingdom, Brazil, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Singapore.

In the normal course of business, we and our subsidiaries included in the consolidated financial statements may be involved in various lawsuits, proceedings and regulatory examinations. We assess liabilities and contingencies in connection with outstanding legal proceedings, if any, utilizing the latest information available. Based on currently available information, the outcome of our outstanding matters is not expected to have a material adverse impact on our financial position. It is not presently possible to determine our ultimate exposure to these matters and there is no assurance that the resolution of the outstanding matters will not significantly exceed any reserves accrued by us. See Note 15 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion of our commitments and contingencies.

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, 2025 and 2024, respectively. A discussion of changes in our Financial Results and Cash Flow Comparisons from the year ended December 31, 2023 to the year ended December 31, 2024 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, 2024.

Executive Overview

MarketAxess operates leading electronic trading platforms delivering greater trading efficiency, a diversified pool of liquidity and significant cost savings to approximately 2,100 institutional investor and broker-dealer clients across the global fixed-income and other markets. We have built a differentiated market position through our integrated approach to electronic trading, combining diverse trading protocols, automated and algorithmic execution solutions, intelligent data products and analytics and comprehensive post-trade and technology services. The fixed-income markets we focus on remain significantly less electronified than other asset classes, creating significant opportunities for continued growth.

We believe our scale, network effects, and product innovation uniquely position us to capture increased trading volumes as the markets continue their transition from voice to electronic trading. At the center of our offerings is Open Trading, our award winning all-to-all marketplace, which creates a unique, anonymous liquidity pool that connects market participants across a broad range of fixed-income products. By expanding the number of potential trading counterparties, we believe that Open Trading facilitates price discovery, improves execution quality, and reduces transaction costs for market participants. Institutional investors can also send trading inquiries directly to broker-dealer counterparties on a disclosed basis, while simultaneously accessing the rest of the market on an anonymous basis through Open Trading. We continue to invest in technology innovation. X-Pro, our next-generation trading platform, provides access to multiple trading protocols and workflow tools and integrates our suite of proprietary pre- and post-trade data and analytics tools, powered by our AI-driven pricing engine, CP+, to deliver a seamless user experience. Our automated execution protocols enable clients to pre-define trading parameters and leverage automation to execute transactions seamlessly and efficiently, reducing manual intervention and allowing traders to focus on higher-value opportunities.

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 create 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.”

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 U.S. high grade bonds traded, economic and political conditions in the United States, Europe and elsewhere, including recent and potential future changes in tariffs, international trade agreements or trade policies, and the consolidation or contraction of our broker-dealer and institutional investor clients.

In 2025, the market backdrop for the Company showed increases in estimated U.S. credit market volumes, with U.S. high-grade and U.S. high-yield market average daily volume up 8.4% and 19.5%, respectively, compared to the prior year. However, despite an increase in volatility during March and April, credit spreads and credit spread volatility remained at relatively low levels throughout much of 2025. With regard to the international products traded on our platforms, estimated market volumes of emerging markets and eurobonds increased significantly compared to the prior year.

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 has other adverse effects on the securities markets or the economy, our financial position and results of operations may be adversely affected.

On July 4, 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the “OBBBA”) was enacted into law in the United States. The OBBBA made significant changes to existing U.S. federal and international tax provisions. The most impactful provisions to our business include the immediate expensing of domestic U.S. research. The OBBBA may have various impacts which are complicated by their different effective dates and many elections available in the OBBBA, as well as uncertainties around U.S. states’ reactions to these federal tax law changes. The OBBBA did not have a material impact on our effective tax rate.

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 2026 Amended 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 $529.9 million in available borrowing capacity under our 2023 Credit Agreement (as defined below) 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. 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 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. Furthermore, portfolio trading is generally provided under a lower-fee structure than other protocols and the growth of portfolio trading on our platform will likely have a negative impact on our average credit variable transaction fee per million.

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.

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 us to incur additional expense. 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 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, 2026. Once effective, this central clearing mandate will impact certain of our participants who do not centrally clear such trades today. These reforms may also change how our clients trade and where they clear when using our platforms. While we expect this change will increase our own platform efficiency, it could also negatively affect trading activity and liquidity in the markets in which we operate, and 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, the SEC withdrew multiple rule proposals in 2025, including those relating to the expansion of Regulation ATS and Regulation SCI. It remains unknown to what extent new legislation will be passed into law or whether other 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 have increased and are 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, the E.U.’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (“DORA”), which focuses on the security of network and information systems of financial services entities, as well as third parties which provide certain information communication technology services (“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 2025, we continued our roll-out of Targeted RFQ, which highlights our AI-driven dealer selection tool, a machine learning model that predicts which counterparties are most likely to provide competitive pricing for high-touch workflows. We have also recently expanded our global Mid-X offering, a sessions-based mid-point matching tool for broker-dealers, to emerging market bonds. 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.”

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 and our revenues:

• the number of participants on our platforms and their willingness to use our platforms instead of competitors’ platforms or other execution methods;
• the particular trading protocol that our participants use to trade securities on our platforms;
• the frequency and competitiveness of the price responses by participants on our platforms;
• the number of markets that are available for our participants to trade on our platforms;
• the overall level of activity in these markets;
• the duration of the U.S. high grade bonds trading on our platforms, which may be affected by inflation, among other macroeconomic factors; and
• 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, 2025 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2024”, in 2025, 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. 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.

Other Commissions. Other commissions include equities and foreign exchange commissions for algorithmic trading services and derivative and ETF commissions earned by RFQ-hub. Commissions for equities, foreign exchange, derivatives and ETFs are volume-tiered and consist of variable transaction fees that are billed monthly.

Information Services

We generate proprietary data from the trading activity and order flow on our platforms. We have prioritized the use of this data to power our AI-driven trading solutions and analytical products. We believe this approach has positioned us to capture higher long-term value by leveraging our proprietary data to enhance our trading solutions and strengthen the integrated value proposition of our platform. 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-related license and connectivity fees 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 annually, or sooner 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.

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 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 2023, 2024 and 2025, 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 200.0% 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, 2025, a 10.0% change in the expected final share payouts would increase or decrease the total value of the awards by $1.3 million. The estimated final share payouts for the 2023 and 2024 awards as of December 31, 2025 decreased 27.6% compared to December 31, 2024.

Goodwill and Intangible Assets

Goodwill is assessed for impairment annually in the fourth quarter or more frequently if events occur or circumstances change that indicate an impairment may exist. When assessing goodwill for impairment, first, a qualitative assessment can be made to determine whether it is more likely than not that the estimated fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying value. If the results of the qualitative assessment are not conclusive, a quantitative goodwill test is performed. As a result of the annual assessment, we determined that it was more likely than not that the estimated fair value of goodwill exceeded its carrying value. Therefore, we determined that goodwill was not impaired and that a quantitative goodwill test was not required.

Identifiable intangible assets are tested for impairment annually, or sooner when events or changes in circumstances suggest that an asset’s or asset group’s carrying value may not be fully recoverable. Judgment is required to evaluate whether indications of potential impairment have occurred, and to test identifiable intangible assets for impairment, if required. An impairment is recognized if the estimated undiscounted cash flows relating to the asset or asset group is less than the corresponding carrying value. During the year ended December 31, 2025, there were no events or changes in circumstances that suggested our intangible assets' carrying values exceeded their fair values, and as such, no impairment charges were recorded.

Uncertain tax positions

Our interpretations of tax laws around the world are subject to review and examination by the various taxing authorities in the jurisdictions where we operate, and disputes may occur regarding our view on a tax position. These disputes over interpretations with the various taxing authorities may be settled by audit, administrative appeals or adjudication in the court systems of the tax jurisdictions in which we operate.

In accounting for income taxes, we recognize tax positions in the financial statements only when it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained on examination by the relevant taxing authority or the court of last resort based on the technical merits of the position. We reassess our unrecognized tax benefits as necessary when new information becomes available, including changes in tax law and regulations, relevant tax court rulings and interactions with taxing authorities. Uncertain tax positions that meet the more-likely-than-not recognition threshold are measured to determine the amount of benefit to recognize. An uncertain tax position is measured based on the largest amount of benefit that we believe is more-likely-than-not to be realized upon settlement. It is possible that the reassessment of our unrecognized tax benefits may have a material impact on our effective income tax rate in the period in which the reassessment occurs. See Note 9 for a discussion of our provisions for unrecognized tax benefits related to current and prior periods.

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.

Results of Operations

Year Ended December 31, 2025 Compared to Year Ended December 31, 2024

The following table summarizes our financial results for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024:

($ in thousands, except per share amounts)

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Changes in average foreign currency exchange rates compared to the U.S. dollar had the effect of increasing revenues and expenses by $4.6 million and $4.5 million, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2025.

Revenues

Our revenues for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

($ in thousands)

Commissions

Our commission revenues for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

($ in thousands)

Credit variable transaction fees increased by $8.6 million, driven by a 10.0% increase in trading volume, partially offset by a 7.6% decrease in total credit average variable transaction fee per million. Rates variable transaction fees increased by $3.0 million, driven principally by a 14.9% increase in trading volumes, partially offset by a 2.5% decrease in average variable transaction fee per million. Other variable transaction fees include equities and foreign exchange commissions and, beginning in May 2025, derivative and ETF commissions earned by RFQ-hub.

Our trading volumes for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024 were as follows:

($ in millions)

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

The 4.4% 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 8.0% to $9.7 trillion for the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to the year ended December 31, 2024. Our estimated market share of total U.S. high-grade corporate bond volume decreased to 18.4% for the year ended December 31, 2025 from 19.0% for the year ended December 31, 2024. U.S. high-yield volume increased by 12.5% primarily due to an increase in estimated market volumes, partially offset by a decrease in our estimated market share. Our estimated market share of total U.S. high-yield corporate bond volume decreased to 12.5% for the year ended December 31, 2025 from 13.2% for the year ended December 31, 2024.

Emerging markets and eurobond volumes increased by 14.0% and 19.2%, respectively, driven by an increase in block trading. Other credit volumes increased 13.2%, mainly due to an increase in estimated municipal bond market volumes. Rates trading volume increased 14.9%, primarily due to an increase in estimated market volumes.

Our average variable transaction fee per million for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024 was as follows:

Credit average variable transaction fee per million decreased by 7.6% to $138.87 per million for the year ended December 31, 2025, mainly due to protocol mix-shift reflecting increased portfolio trading.

Information Services. Information services revenue increased by $2.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, mainly due to net new data contract revenue of $1.8 million and the positive impact of foreign currency fluctuations of $0.9 million.

Post-Trade Services. Post-trade services revenue increased by $2.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, principally due to the positive impact of foreign currency fluctuations of $1.4 million and net new contract revenue of $0.6 million.

Technology Services. Technology services revenue increased by $1.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2025 due to higher license and connectivity fees.

Expenses

The following table summarizes our expenses for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024:

($ in thousands)

Employee compensation and benefits increased by $12.7 million primarily due to higher salary costs on higher average headcount and higher severance costs, including repositioning charges related to changes in the Company’s management structure.

Depreciation and amortization increased by $2.9 million primarily due to higher amortization of software development costs, offset by lower depreciation of production software.

Technology and communications expenses increased by $6.1 million, primarily due to higher software as a service costs and cloud hosting fees.

Professional and consulting fees increased by $4.1 million primarily due to higher IT consulting costs, higher other consulting expenses and higher non-IT consulting costs, partially offset by lower acquisition-related consulting and legal costs.

Clearing costs decreased by $1.3 million primarily due to lower U.S. Treasury clearing costs.

General and administrative expenses increased by $3.9 million, primarily due to higher subscription costs and higher charitable contributions.

Other Income (Expense)

Our other income (expense) for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, and the resulting dollar and percentage changes, were as follows:

($ in thousands)

Interest income decreased by $1.6 million primarily due to lower interest rates.

Interest expense decreased by $0.1 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 through May 9, 2025, the date of the 2025 RFQ-hub Acquisition (as defined below).

Other, net increased by $8.0 million principally driven by foreign exchange gains in the current year compared to losses in the prior year and unrealized gains on our investments in the current period compared to unrealized losses in the prior period.

Provision for Income Taxes.

The provision for income taxes and effective tax rate for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024 were as follows:

($ in thousands)

Our consolidated effective tax rate can vary from period to period depending on the geographic mix of our earnings, provisions for unrecognized tax benefits, changes in tax legislation and tax rates and the amount and timing of excess tax benefits or detriments related to share-based payments, among other factors. The increase in the effective tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2025 is due to the reserve for unrecognized tax benefits established in 2025.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

During the year ended December 31, 2025, 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 $678.9 million as of December 31, 2025. 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 a three-year revolving credit facility (the “2023 Credit Agreement”), which provides aggregate commitments totaling $750.0 million, consisting of 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 2023 Credit Agreement was amended and restated on February 4, 2026 (the “2026 Amended Credit Agreement”). The 2026 Amended Credit Agreement will mature on February 2, 2029, 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, 2025, we had $220.0 million of borrowings and $0.1 million in letters of credit outstanding, and $529.9 million in available borrowing capacity under the 2023 Credit Agreement. Borrowings under the 2026 Amended Credit Agreement will bear interest at a rate per annum equal to an alternate base rate or the adjusted term Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”) rate, plus an applicable margin that varies with our consolidated total leverage ratio. The 2026 Amended 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, 2025. See Note 13 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion of the 2023 Credit Agreement. See Note 20 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for a discussion of the 2026 Amended 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 1.00% plus the higher of (i) the upper range of the Federal Funds Rate, (ii) one-month SOFR plus an applicable margin or (iii) 0.25%. As of December 31, 2025, 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, 2025, 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, 2025, the aggregate amount of the positions financed, restricted cash deposits and customer reserve balances associated with our self-clearing and settlement activities was $213.8 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.

Cash Flows for the Year Ended December 31, 2025 Compared to the Year Ended December 31, 2024

Our cash flows were as follows:

($ in thousands)

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 $3.1 million decrease in net cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to lower net income and unfavorable changes in net receivables from broker-dealers, clearing organizations and customers, and accrued employee compensation, partially offset by favorable changes in income and other tax liabilities, accounts receivable, trading investments and accounts payable, accrued expenses and other liabilities.

The $10.0 million increase in net cash used in investing activities was primarily due to net cash outflows for the 2025 RFQ-hub Acquisition, offset by lower net purchases of securities available-for-sale.

The $131.0 million increase in net cash used in financing activities was principally due to higher repurchases of common stock, including the ASR, higher cash dividends and lower exercises of stock options, offset by higher net proceeds from borrowings.

The $30.7 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 British Pound and Euro versus the U.S. dollar in the year ended December 31, 2025.

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.

One of our U.S. subsidiaries is registered as a broker-dealer and is 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, 2025, 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, 2025, our subsidiaries maintained aggregate net capital and financial resources that were $593.4 million in excess of the required levels of $39.8 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.

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, 2025 and 2024. Substantially all of our open securities failed-to-deliver and securities failed-to-receive transactions as of December 31, 2025 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 $82.2 million, with $12.7 million due within the next 12 months and $69.5 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, 2025, the notional value of our foreign currency forward contracts outstanding was $94.2 million and the fair value of the asset was $1.8 million. We also may enter into interest rate swap agreements to manage our exposure to the effect of interest rate changes on our unrealized gains and losses on U.S. Treasury investments. As of December 31, 2025, we had no interest rate swaps outstanding.

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. In December 2025, the Board authorized the 2025 Repurchase Program for an additional $400.0 million. The Repurchase Programs do not have an expiration date. As of December 31, 2025, we had $205.0 million of remaining capacity under the Repurchase Programs. Shares repurchased under the Repurchase Programs will be held in treasury for future use.

On December 9, 2025, the Company entered into an accelerated stock repurchase agreement (the “ASR”) with JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association (“JPMorgan”) pursuant to which the Company paid $300.0 million and received an initial delivery of 1,386,001 shares of the Company’s common stock (the “Initial ASR Shares”), representing 80% of the value of such payment in shares, calculated based on the closing share price of $173.16 per share on December 9, 2025. Final settlement of the ASR occurred on February 4, 2026 with the delivery of 359,782 additional shares. The average purchase price per share for shares of common stock purchased by the Company pursuant to the ASR was $171.84, which was determined based on the daily volume-weighted average price of the Company’s common stock during the term of the ASR, less a discount.

In January 2026, our Board approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.78 per share payable on March 4, 2026 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on February 18, 2026. 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.

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. From time to time, we present selected GAAP-basis financial results, excluding notable items. Notable items are revenues, expenses, other income (expense) and tax related items that are non-recurring and outside of the Company’s normal course of business or other notables, such as acquisition and restructuring charges or gains/losses on sales (collectively, “notable items”). 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. Non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to, not as a substitute for or superior to, financial measures determined in conformity with GAAP. 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.

The table set forth below presents a reconciliation of our total expenses to total expenses, excluding notable items, other income (expense) to other income (expense) excluding notable items, net income to net income, excluding notable items, diluted EPS to diluted EPS, excluding notable items, and the effective tax rate to effective tax rate, excluding notable items for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024:

($ in thousands)

56

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, 2025 and 2024:

($ in thousands)

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, 2025 and 2024:

($ in thousands)

57

Market risk is the risk of the loss resulting from adverse changes in market rates and prices, such as interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates.

Market Risk

The global financial services business is, by its nature, risky and volatile and is directly affected by many national and international factors that are beyond our control. Any one of these factors may cause a substantial decline in the U.S. and global financial services markets, resulting in reduced trading volume and revenues. These events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As of December 31, 2025, we had $100.8 million of investments in U.S. Treasuries that were classified as trading securities and $58.4 million of investments in corporate bonds that were classified as available-for-sale. Adverse movements, such as a decrease in the value of these securities or a downturn or disruption in the markets for these securities, could result in a substantial loss. A 10.0% decrease in the market value of our U.S Treasuries or available-for-sale investments would result in losses of approximately $10.1 million and $5.8 million, respectively. In addition, principal gains and losses resulting from these securities could on occasion have a disproportionate effect, positive or negative, on our financial condition and results of operations for any particular reporting period.

See also Part I, Item 1A.– “Risk Factors – Risks Related to Global Economic and Market Conditions – Global economic, political and market factors beyond our control could reduce demand for our services, and our profitability and business could suffer.”

Interest Rate Risk

Interest rate risk represents our exposure to interest rate changes with respect to our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and deposits. As of December 31, 2025, our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and deposits amounted to $675.9 million. A hypothetical 100 basis point change in interest rates would increase or decrease our annual interest income by approximately $6.8 million, assuming no change in the amount or composition of our cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash and deposits.

As of December 31, 2025, a hypothetical 100 basis point increase or decrease in interest rates would decrease or increase the fair value of the available-for-sale investment portfolio by approximately $0.8 million, assuming no change in the amount or composition of the investments. The hypothetical unrealized gain or loss of $0.8 million would be recognized in accumulated other comprehensive loss on the Consolidated Statements of Financial Condition.

A similar hypothetical 100 basis point increase or decrease in interest rates would decrease or increase the fair value of the trading securities portfolio by approximately $2.4 million. The hypothetical unrealized gain or loss of $2.4 million would be recognized in other, net in the Consolidated Statements of Operations.

We do not maintain an inventory of bonds that are traded on our platform.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk

We conduct operations in several different countries outside of the U.S., most notably the U.K., and substantial portions of our revenues, expenses, assets and liabilities are generated and denominated in non-U.S. dollar currencies. Since our consolidated financial statements are presented in U.S. dollars, we must translate revenues, income and expenses, as well as assets and liabilities, into U.S. dollars at exchange rates in effect during or at the end of each reporting period. Accordingly, increases or decreases in the value of the U.S. dollar against the other currencies will affect our net operating revenues, operating expenses, operating income and the value of balance sheet items denominated in foreign currencies.

During the year ended December 31, 2025, approximately 17.6% of our revenue and 29.5% of our expenses were denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, most notably the British Pound Sterling. Based on actual results over the past year, a hypothetical 10.0% increase or decrease in the U.S. dollar against all other currencies would have increased or decreased revenue by approximately $14.9 million and operating expenses by approximately $14.9 million.

Credit Risk

Through certain of our subsidiaries, 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.

We are exposed to credit and performance risks in our role as matched principal trading counterparty to our clients executing bond trades on our platform, including the risk that counterparties that owe us money or securities will not perform their obligations. These parties may default on their obligations to us due to bankruptcy, lack of liquidity, operational failure or other reasons. Adverse movements in the prices of securities that are the subject of these transactions can increase our risk. In connection with Open Trading or other anonymous protocols, we expect that the number of transactions in which we act as a matched principal will increase.

We have policies, procedures and automated controls in place to identify and manage our credit risk. There can be no assurance that these policies, procedures and automated controls will effectively mitigate our credit risk exposure. Some of our risk management procedures are reliant upon the evaluation of information regarding the fixed-income markets, our clients or other relevant matters that are publicly available or otherwise acquired from third-party sources. Such information may not be accurate, complete, up-to-date or properly assessed and interpreted by us. If our risk management procedures fail, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected. Furthermore, our insurance policies are unlikely to provide coverage for such risks.

Cash and cash equivalents include cash and money market instruments that are primarily maintained at three major global banks. Given this concentration, we are exposed to certain credit risk in relation to our deposits at these banks.

Derivative Risk

Our limited derivative risk stems from our activities in the foreign currency forward contract market. We use this market to economically hedge our foreign exchange gains and losses on the Consolidated Statements of Operations that arise from our U.S. dollar and Euro versus British Pound Sterling exposure from the activities of our U.K. subsidiaries. As of December 31, 2025, the notional amounts of our foreign currency forward contracts were $94.2 million. We also may enter into interest rate swap agreements to manage our exposure to the effect of interest rate changes on our unrealized gains and losses on U.S. Treasury investments. We do not hold derivative instruments for purposes other than economically hedging foreign currency and interest rate risk.

Our management, including the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, evaluated the effectiveness of our “disclosure controls and procedures,” as that term is defined in Rule 13a-15(e) and Rule 15d-15(e) promulgated under the Exchange Act, as of December 31, 2025. Based on that evaluation, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that the disclosure controls and procedures are effective to ensure that information required to be disclosed by MarketAxess in the reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules and forms, and to ensure that information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) and Rule 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) during the quarter ended December 31, 2025 identified in connection with the evaluation thereof by our management, including the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, that materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Management’s annual report on internal control over financial reporting and the report of our independent registered public accounting firm appears in Part II, Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.