Bloomberg has announced the first successful fully automated Japanese Government Bond (JGB) Market-on-Close trade, following the introduction of a new workflow.

Aligned to BB3P (Hikene Trading), the Market-on-Close reference rate for JGBs, the automated workflow helps minimize tracking error and provides certainty of execution at a specific close time.

Available as part of Bloomberg Electronic Markets, the workflow combines the Bid/Offer List Trading functionality with Rule Builder, Bloomberg’s trade automation tool, enabling clients to define execution criteria and automate order routing based on predefined conditions within an integrated order and execution management workflow, through TSOX.

Yudhveer Chaudhry, Head of Emerging Markets, FX, Commodities & Digital Assets at BlackRock, commented:

“The ability to combine Market-on-Close execution with rule-based automation is a significant step forward for the JGB markets. By accelerating time to market and enabling more systematic execution at the BB3P market reference, this workflow will help minimize transaction costs, reduce manual intervention, and deliver more consistent, optimized outcomes for investors, particularly during high-volume periods. It is an exciting development for one of the highest volume bond markets in Asia, and we were pleased to collaborate with Bloomberg on introducing the protocol.”

Norman Tweeboom, Japan Enterprise Sales Head at Bloomberg, said:

“We continue to enhance our global Market-on-Close capabilities, bringing greater automation and efficiency to Fixed Income trading for our global clients. The powerful combination of Bloomberg Electronic Markets capabilities enables clients to more efficiently negotiate pricing while reducing operational complexity in a critical market.”

The JGB workflow expands Bloomberg’s Market-on-Close capabilities across global fixed income, which also supports U.S. Treasuries, Canadian government bonds, U.K. Gilts and European government bonds.