Direct Edge exchange plans delayed

US equities trading venue Direct Edge has delayed the launch of its two trading platforms as fully-fledged exchanges by just under two months.
By None

US equities trading venue Direct Edge has delayed the launch of its two trading platforms as fully-fledged exchanges by just under two months.

The EDGA and EDGX platforms will now start trading in 2 July 2010 as exchanges instead of the previously targeted date of 12 May. They currently operate as electronic communications networks.

According to Direct Edge, the launch was delayed to allow enough time for members and data vendors to establish connections to its new data centre and to avoid migration before the rebalancing of the Russell indices, which takes place every year in June. Direct Edge’s data centre will be located at the Equinix NY4 facility in Secaucus, New Jersey, which it claims will improve latency, consistency and throughput of its markets.

On 2 July, three symbols will be made available for trading on EDGX and EDGA with the full roll-out of instruments expected in the following two to three weeks. Test symbols will be made available in a production environment from 21 June.

Direct Edge first filed for exchange status in May last year to help it better compete with rival exchange groups BATS Global Markets, NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX. It had originally targeted a Q4 2009 launch but revised this date following administrative issues.

BATS applied for a similar transition for its equity trading platform, now called BATS Exchange, in November 2007. The platform became an exchange in October 2008.

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