We propose a new measure of private information in decentralized marketsconnections-which exploits the time variation in the number of dealers with whom a client trades in a time period. Using trade-level data for the U.K. government bond market, we show that clients perform better when having more connections as their trades predict future price movements. Time variation in market-wide connections also helps explain yield dynamics. Given our novel measure, we present two applications suggesting that (i) dealers pass on information, acquired from their informed clients, to their affiliates, and (ii) informed clients better predict the orderflow intermediated by their dealers.A MAIN ROLE OF FINANCIAL markets is to aggregate private information held by economic agents. Trading activity and subsequent adjustments in asset prices release this information to the wider public, thereby making markets more efficient and increasing the welfare of society. The main challenge facing any scientific study of this mechanism is that neither private information nor the identities of its owners are readily observable.Our paper proposes a proxy for private information. We combine a detailed data set of the U.K. government bond market, which includes trading parties' identities and transactions, with insights from the microstructure literature.