
The news that MarketAxess was about to join an inner sanctum of corporate America stunned Rick McVey. The chief executive of the electronic bond-trading platform had just returned to his office in Hudson Yards in New York after a late-afternoon meeting, to find that the company had qualified for the S&P 500 index of the biggest US companies. Since that day in late June the company’s market capitalisation has added another $2.8bn, a reflection of its position right at the heart of sweeping changes on Wall Street.