Credit Bonds: HY
High-yield credit,
executed with precision.
Smaller average sizes, wider spreads, and more demanding liquidity conditions; HY credit executed with bond-level scoring, impact-aware sizing, and full best-ex attribution.
Market context
High-yield liquidity, what the data shows.
High-yield bond liquidity has been a subject of sustained academic and regulatory attention since the financial crisis. The empirical record is instructive: liquidity conditions in HY are structurally different from IG, and the gap has widened over time. Execution infrastructure has to be calibrated to that reality.
REGULATOR VIEW
Corporate debt sustainability remains a concern, as highlighted by the recent widening of spreads particularly in the HY segment.
– ESMA · Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities Report No. 2 (September 2025)
Coverage
High-yield flow, routed around the liquidity.
High-yield credit does not trade like investment-grade. Liquidity is lumpier, dealer axes matter more, and the cost of an incorrect protocol or size selection is measurable in the final fill.
Ediphy Markets treats HY as a distinct flow: the same multi-venue routing and evidenced best-ex infrastructure as IG, but driven by HY-aware Liquidity Scores that reflect observed execution patterns for each name. RFQ to natural axes when they exist, all-to-all when anonymity matters, sized and timed to protect the book.
| Investment-grade | High-yield | |
|---|---|---|
| Average ticket size | Larger, deeper book | Smaller, lumpier |
| Dealer axe relevance | Useful | Decisive |
| Streaming liquidity | Active names | – |
| Information leakage cost | Tight | Wider |
| Mis-protocol penalty | Modest | Material |
Built for HY traders.
Designed around the realities of HY microstructure, lumpy liquidity, dealer axe economics, and the material market-impact cost of poor protocol or sizing decisions.
Liquidity-aware routing
HY-specific Liquidity Scores drive protocol and venue selection. Names with natural axes route differently than orphan lines, the engine adjusts in real time as the market moves.
RFQ · A2A · AXE-AWARE
Impact-minimised sizing
Order sizing and pacing calibrated to each name. Large tickets are worked across venues and over time to reduce information leakage.
PACING · DISCRETION
Best-execution evidencing
Full audit trail on every fill, venues, protocols, prices received, benchmarked against an independent mid. The evidence that HY execution is typically hardest to produce.
MIFID II · AUDIT TRAIL
Analytics coverage
fairMid reference prices, Liquidity Scores tuned for HY microstructure, and post-trade TCA that attributes cost to protocol and timing.
FAIRMID · LIQUIDITY · TCA
HY trade discipline
- 01 Score the nameHY-tuned Liquidity Score read at order entry.
- 02 Protocol selected for youfairEx routes to RFQ on a natural axe, and to A2A or works the order over time when there's no axe.
- 03 Size for impactShow only what the venue can absorb without leaking intent.
- 04 Reference the right midAn independent mid-price reference on every order, regardless of venue or protocol.
- 05 Log the rationaleWhy this venue, this size, this timing, captured at the click.
- 06 Attribute every fillCost attribution broken down to protocol, venue, and timing.
Why Ediphy
HY is where process discipline pays.
On a liquid IG name, execution-quality differences are fine but compound across volume. On HY, they are far larger. Consistent application of protocol selection, order sizing, timing, and reference pricing compounds into material P&L over a year of trading.
Ediphy Markets systematises that discipline: every order carries a reasoning trail, every fill is attributed, and the analytics that drove the decision are the same analytics that evidence it post-trade. Sound process is embedded in the workflow from the outset, not retrofitted by a compliance function.