Global broker Knight today announced the introduction of Knight Match Europe, a non-displayed liquidity venue for the trading of European equities. Knight Match provides a pool of liquidity to the European marketplace that brings together retail, institutional, algorithmic and principal order flow.
Knight Match has been designed as a broker crossing system offering anonymous access and trade execution opportunities in search of price improvement.
The presence of retail order flow, both resting and marketable, within the pool is seen as a key differentiating feature. By combining orders originating from institutional desks and buy-side algorithms as well as from Knight's retail broker-dealer clients and Knight Link Europe's market-making flow it is anticipated that this will result in increased fulfillment opportunities.
Orders are executed according to a price/equal split protocol, providing a level playing field by fulfilling at the best price equally split among all matching orders, rather than simply fulfilling on a first-come, first-serve basis. Another distinguishing feature of Knight Match Europe is the various order types accepted in the venue: limit orders, immediate-or-cancel, peg orders (mid- and near-touch).
Clients can access Knight Match Europe through a variety of channels, including the Knight Direct execution management system, Knight's full suite of algorithms, FIX 4.2, Bloomberg, FidessaNet, ULNet, Thompson Reuters, TradeWeb, TradingScreen and any FIX-compliant EMS/OMS.
The introduction of Knight Match Europe follows the November 2009 launch of Knight Link Europe and continues the company's efforts to provide alternative liquidity products and enhance its capabilities in pan-European equities.