Welcome to our annual survey of European trading volumes and market fragmentation at the end of yet another highly eventful year of trading. We aim to provide a brief overview of the key trends and patterns in the market microstructure in 2022 by comparison with the previous five years. The survey is based on a vast amount of data. Since the beginning of the new MiFID2 regime in Europe, we have collected over 2.5 trillion data points from the European equity markets. Back in Q1 2020 it felt like we were watching a truly exceptional event but despite lower volatility, the markets managed to deliver something even more unpredictable. Please have a read of our latest European market microstructure and let us know your thoughts or ideas for any further investigations.
Trading turnover in European equities posted a new MiFID II era record in Q1, 34% higher than the four year average, as investors reacted to the cocktail of inflationary fears and war. Back in Q1 2020 it felt like we were watching a truly exceptional event but despite lower volatility, the markets managed to deliver something even more unpredictable. Please have a read of our latest European market microstructure and let us know your thoughts or ideas for any further investigations.
2021 has ended and all that remains are the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup. In our latest annual survey of market volumes and fragmentation trends in European equities, we gaze at the patterns to see how the story unfolded and what we can learn about the year ahead. Another turbulent year for equities globally played out in the daily ebb and flow of over 250 billion quotes, orders and trades, presented to you here in a short pictorial summary.
The summer saw increased nervousness in the European markets in reaction to a fragile recovery from the pandemic and concerns about the spectre of inflation. However, trading in equities remained quite buoyant, especially in September, and Q3 volumes returned to their seasonal, pre-pandemic average, in contrast to last summer’s record breaking doldrums. Welcome to our latest quarterly survey of market volumes and fragmentation trends in European equities. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, we encourage you to visit our website to read our Microbites series for an explanation of European market microstructure.
Welcome to our latest quarterly survey of market volumes and fragmentation trends in European equities. If you are unfamiliar with the topic, we encourage you to visit our website to read our Microbites series for an explanation of European market microstructure. With the major European indexes enjoying substantial price gains in H1 2021, we might have expected a similar boost in market volume. However the quarter just finished was the weakest Q2 in over four years. In this edition of the survey we have added a view of the ETF market, which by contrast has grown in volume terms by 6.5% versus 2020, albeit on a cross-asset basis.
Welcome to our latest quarterly survey of market volumes and fragmentation trends in European equities. Following a desolate second half in 2020 and despite ongoing Covid-19 and Brexit-related uncertainty, the first quarter of 2021 saw a return to some kind of normality in market volumes. View the complete report
In 2020, we took to trading from our bedrooms, garden sheds and conservatories, learned how to download several hundred video conferencing packages, set up a home-school on the kitchen table, and went to work in our pyjamas. As we couldn’t go out on New Year’s Eve to watch the fireworks, we stayed in and prepared our 2020 survey of European equity market volumes and other statistics.
It hasn’t been a good quarter for the European Equity Market. In nearly every country, we’ve seen record lows for volumes throughout the summer. August delivered the slowest month for trading since the MiFID2 era began in January 2018 and the pattern persisted into September. Although 2020 remains ahead of 2019 in terms of daily turnover, the lead has diminished substantially from 34% in Q1 to 11% in Q3 and may evaporate completely in Q4. You can download the full report by clicking on the icons or clicking here.
Having a good understanding of how to select a venue when executing a large trade is essential for successful performance. There are many venues to consider and each venue has its own “sweet spot”, depending on the names and size traded and that varies according to your level of urgency. Using objective criteria, such as expected time to execution and likely price impact, we can rank venues into an order of priority for routing. Furthermore, when we look at how this changes over time, we get a sense of the importance of regular monitoring and updating of the smart order routing process.
The strange times continue. While Q1 broke all the records, Q2 came up with a few surprises. The biggest MSCI rebalance in history pushed the figures up for May, thanks to some major index re-weightings. Volatility returned in June to create the 3rd biggest month since MiFID2 began. In our quarterly review we look at the patterns of volumes and market share and this time we take a closer look inside the box of Systematic Internalisation.
