Tuesday 28 September 2021

SOFR: Is something happening?

Weekly volumes of interest rate trades. Is SOFR slowly waking-up? Weekly volume last week are the highest ever, higher than mid-July. ISDA reported figures (US only) have the highest percentage of SOFR outright volume (almost 14%).

The ISDA data (representing data reported to US regulators) is growing faster than the LCH data (international markets). Does it means that international users are slower to move to SOFR and that we could have two markets: a local market (with local regulatory pressure) and an international market (with more market freedom)?

Note that we have change the definition of relative portion in the graph. The outright SOFR is now reported as portion of all trades, not portion of LIBOR trades. This is to avoid "infinite" results when LIBOR will disappear. The portion is now capped at 100%.