ITG to launch POSIT auction in Europe

New POSIT auction service will launch later this year and it was designed in response to MiFID II’s trading caps.

ITG is to launch POSIT auction as a lit book across the EMEA region ahead of MiFID II’s trading caps in January 2018. 

The service is a new lit segment on the POSIT MTF running periodic auctions for matching opportunities submitted to the POSIT auction order book.

It was designed to provide a low-impact approach to finding liquidity while protecting traders during price discovery including price collars, limit and peg orders types, ITG said.

Auction periods will begin as soon as a matching opportunity is found and will be set to run for a fixed call period of 50 milliseconds, plus a random call period of up to 50 milliseconds before the uncross/auction completion.

Duncan Higgins, head of electronic products for ITG in EMEA, explained the MiFID II trading caps have increased focus on sourcing high-quality liquidity.

“POSIT Auction is designed to provide valuable trading opportunities in circumstances where liquidity is reduced due to the dark trading caps.

“It will work as an integral part of our POSIT MTF, in addition to our POSIT Alert block crossing network,” he added.

The POSIT auction is expected to launch in the fourth quarter this year and will be available for the same stocks traded in the POSIT dark segment. 

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