Organization and Principal Business Activity

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2013

Accounting Policies [Abstract]

Organization and Principal Business Activity

1. Organization and Principal Business Activity

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (the “Company” or “MarketAxess”) was incorporated in the State of Delaware on April 11, 2000. Through its subsidiaries, the Company operates an electronic trading platform for corporate bonds and other types of fixed-income instruments through which the Company’s institutional investor clients can access liquidity provided by its broker-dealer clients. The Company’s multi-dealer trading platform allows its institutional investor clients to simultaneously request competitive, executable bids or offers from multiple broker-dealers, and to execute trades with the broker-dealer of their choice. The Company offers its clients the ability to trade U.S. high-grade corporate bonds, European high-grade corporate bonds, credit default swaps, agencies, high yield and emerging markets bonds and asset-backed and preferred securities. The Company also executes certain bond transactions between and among institutional investor and broker-dealer clients on a riskless principal basis by serving as counterparty to both the buyer and the seller in matching back-to-back trades, which then settle through a third-party clearing organization. The Company provides fixed-income market data analytics and compliance tools that help its clients make trading decisions. The Company also provides trade matching and regulatory transaction reporting services to the securities markets. In addition, the Company provides FIX (Financial Information eXchange) message management tools, connectivity solutions and ancillary technology services that facilitate the electronic communication of order information between trading counterparties.