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SAT 2-1: Corporate Bonds
Time:
Saturday, 06/Dec/2025:
8:30am - 9:25am
Presentations
Illiquidity Meets Intelligence: AI-Driven Price Discovery in Corporate Bonds
Stacey Jacobsen, Kumar Venkataraman, David Xu
Southern Methodist University, United States of America
This study examines whether AI-generated reference prices improve intraday price discovery in markets with infrequent trading. Using corporate bond transactions and CP+ reference quotes from MarketAxess, we find that CP+ quotes are generally more informative about future trade prices than the most recent trade. CP+ fills information gaps between trades by incorporating signals from bond, equity, and options markets, as well as bond-specific proprietary information. Coverage extends to most bonds on nearly all trading days, including less liquid issues. CP+’s added value to price discovery follows a bell-shaped pattern with respect to bond liquidity and increases during periods of elevated market uncertainty. Around block trades and rating downgrades, CP+ for less active bonds deviates more from trade prices and converges faster to post-event values. For active bonds, CP+'s strong reliance on trade data, even during large reversals, limits its independent contribution to price discovery.