We have just launched the Market Microstructure in Practice for Equities with big xyt’s API interactive presentation on the big xyt Academy. If you are a quantitative analyst or developer, trader, portfolio manager, or anyone interested in market microstructure for sales and marketing, this could be of interest to you. Explore big xyt’s powerful and flexible API to see how convenient and reliable it is for conducting research and analysing market microstructure, as well as assessing trading performance and algos.
In the search for liquidity, particularly whilst minimising market impact, a means to identify large trades and where they take place is key for the investing community. The regulatory changes in MiFIDII introduced the concept of Large In Scale (LIS). No, not not a post-Brexit way to limit fishing quotas, rather a means to identify large transactions in financial instruments. In the equity landscape this has resulted in some confusion post-Brexit. Depending on the activity in each individual stock, an LIS threshold was set, above which the trade could be classed as a block trade. As Broker Crossing Networks were abolished at the same time, this LIS threshold was applied as one of the permissible justifications of many venues supporting dark trading.
We’re not too sure what all the excitement is about… at big xyt we have been researching the changing shape of the dark landscape for years. In fact, rather like long established theories, on the face of it European dark trading volumes have remained relatively steady. Our team of curious data scientists likes to help the trading community to explore a bit deeper and it’s easy to see that Pan-European dark volumes have been in a fairly tight range with around 8% share of adjusted (our proxy for addressable volumes) for some time, only getting squeezed temporarily with the onset of double volume caps in mid 2018.
Navigating the choppy waters of ETF liquidity is challenging and requires visibility of all available trade mechanisms. The chart below looks at the European ETF universe however the picture changes
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
Academics from Brains Trust predict market launch will quench investors’ thirst for trading to stay local. (Special note: this was an April Fool’s Day post) Flushed with success from the Six Nations Championship a new stock market is being proposed for Welsh investment in Welsh companies. Behind the initiative is the recently formed Welsh Industrial National Development group for Under Performance. Passive funds will be able to track the Taff Index made up of Strong Companies Repositioning for Upward Movement following the top 15 constituents from a total squad of 23.
The big xyt Microbites series is for those who are unfamiliar with the European market structure or need a refresher. In this third episode we look at dark trading in Europe and the unique rules that limit the activity. We recommend that you read the previous episodes if you are unfamiliar with any of the terms used here. View the article
Those of you who keep a close eye on market microstructure will be well aware of a dress rehearsal for “non equivalence” in July 2018 when all Swiss trading was banned on competing venues. Overnight the primary SIX exchange was responsible for 98.8% of turnover in the top 20 Swiss equities (two dual listed stocks ABB Ltd and Lafarge Holcim Ltd were exceptions). Before this the primary had around 70% of market share. This was fairly typical for the primary/MTF split for Lit and Dark volumes as competition evolved post-MiFID regulatory changes.
In our second episode on the European market structure landscape, we describe the grandly named “Multilateral Trading Facilities” (MTFs) and compare them to the better known national stock exchanges.
There was always bound to be some post Brexit ‘fallout’. Unsurprisingly there was plenty of market commentary last week, however we wanted to wait for the dust to settle before we made any of our own observations. You will find it reassuring to know that your suspicions are correct. We can confirm that turnover on Multilateral Trading Facilities (MTFs) shifted to EU venues as investors in EU stocks followed the expected migratory route. If a European alternative existed, the flow migrated there, away from the UK entity (*see the outlier in the footnote below).
