Soft dollars based on fixed-income trades

Only a tiny fraction of fixed-income trades generate soft dollars. A lot of pros are unaware that any such trading goes on. But there are two dealers, Capital Institutional Services of Dallas and BNY Brokerage, that allow the practice. Of course, many buyside outfits use the soft dollars from equity trading to pay for fixed-income research. Are there any benefits to a fixed-income soft dollar model? Yes. In this era of intense scrutiny, end customers may not be pleased to learn that their equity fund managers are paying commissions that subsidize the purchase of bond research.

> Here's an Investment Dealers' Digest article. (exclusively for FierceFinance readers)