The proportion of non-displayed trading in Canada has more than halved since the introduction of new rules that restricted the use of dark pools last October, according to data from Thomson Reuters.
Last month, a total of US$5.3 billion was traded in dark pools, representing 3.4% of overall trading in Canadian equities. In September, the last full month before the introduction of the new rules, dark pools matched US$10.67 billion, accounting for 7.4% of total trading.
Alternative trading system TriAct accounted for 81% of dark trading volumes in January, followed by the dark pool operated by Alpha Trading (16.9%) and buy-side-only crossing network Liquidnet (1.4%).
TriAct has steadily increased its market share of dark pool trading since the new rules came into force at the expense of Alpha Trading. TriAct ended September 2012 with 39% market share compared to Alpha’s 59.7%.
The dark trading rules, which came into force on 15 October, require orders under 5,000 shares or C$100,000 in value to offer a full tick of price improvement, while also giving lit orders priority over dark orders that reside in the same venue.
Meantime, Chi-X Canada, the trading platform owned by Chi-X Global, retained its lead as the biggest alternative venue in Canada, garnering a 19.2% share of overall equity trading. Alpha Trading, which was the largest alternate platform until October last year held second place with 16.9%.
Canada’s domestic market TMX Group – which grabbed 54% of market share last month – was acquired by the Maple Group, a consortium of Canadian financial institutions, last September.