Euromoney polled heads of Eurobond and government bond trading, asking them to nominate the top three houses for trading bonds in specific markets. We received 55 replies in total.
In the overall tables, the following weightings were applied to banks' scores to reflect the variation in size and importance of the various markets:
Eurobonds: weighted by volume of outstanding Eurobonds in each currency at the end of the first quarter this year (source: Capital Data Bondware). The second weighting takes into account secondary market turnover as reported by Euroclear for January and February and Cedel for the first quarter of 1998.
Government bonds: weighted by the Salomon Smith Barney World Government Bond Index at the end of March.
In the breakdown of Eurobond currencies and government bond markets, scores were awarded on a sliding scale of 4:3:2 and were therefore not weighted to take into account turnover or volume.
Respondents were requested not to nominate their own institutions. Those banks which declined to participate in the poll had their scores reduced by 10% in each category.