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“The environment is definitely more healthy for fixed income,” Jonathan Hunter, global head of fixed income and currencies at Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC Capital Markets, said by phone.

While Russell says a sell-off following the election of Donald Trump may spell the end of the bull market in bonds, Canadian banks have benefited from the rise in volatility.

RBC posted a 26 percent jump in fixed-income trading to US$2.39 billion, the highest revenue among Canada’s banks. The firm, the top arranger of Canadian corporate bonds for at least 17 years, leads the nation’s banks on European bond issuance this year and ranks 23rd overall with €18.8 billion of deals. RBC’s focus on originating, selling, and trading new bonds in the secondary market in Europe has been essential, Hunter said.

“Credit is obviously absolutely crucial,” he said. “You’ll see that a significant portion of the lift in our revenues between 2015 and 2016 came from that credit business.”

Growth in the U.S. market has helped counter declines at home for Canadian lenders. Credited U.S. corporate bond sales were little changed at US$1.56 trillion this year compared with the same period last year, whereas Canadian sales slid 7.9 percent to $86.9 billion to Dec. 7, according to Bloomberg data.

Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada’s second-largest lender, saw a 28 percent surge in trading. Moti Jungreis, head of global markets, said that’s from bulking up the capital markets operations, including expanding its U.S. dollar business and benefiting from European banks retreating from the U.S. Toronto-Dominion’s TD Securities is the top Canadian bank for arranging U.S. dollar bonds this year and ranks 12th overall with $60.6 billion of deals, Bloomberg data show.