Trading volumes in Europe showed a slight rise in February, increasing from €727.97 billion in January to €740.55 billion, but remained €100 billion down versus €840.23 billion this time last year, according to data provided by Thomson Reuters.
In the relatively quiet market, most European major venues held reasonably steady market share. The London Stock Exchange Group accounted for 23.9% of Europe’s market share when its MTF Turquoise and Borsa Italiana subsidiaries were included, up slightly from 23.7% in January, while NYSE Euronext held 14.9%, up marginally from 14.6% in January. However, Deutsche Börse’s Xetra saw its market share fall to 12.9%, down from 13.6% in January.
Europe’s MTFs also saw market share erode. The combined BATS Chi-X Europe’s market share shifted down to 24.1%, compared with 24.7% in January, but remained the region’s largest platform operator by a narrow margin. BATS and Chi-X Europe merged in November but still operate separate order books. Turquoise, which operates both a lit and a dark order book, saw its market share contract to 4.85% in February from 5.0% in January.
Total European dark trading in February was €28.29 billion, which represents 3.82% of European market share, suggesting the region’s dark pools paused for breath in February after their successful expansion the previous month. With 3.87% of overall European trading turnover, January recorded the highest ever market share for Europe’s dark pools.
In keeping with the overall picture, Swiss bank UBS's MTF market share stalled at 0.56% in February, compared with 0.57% in January. Goldman Sachs’ Sigma X MTF held 0.44% market share in February, compared with 0.47% in January.
European trading volumes reached a peak of €1.148 trillion in August last year but subsequently sank to €586.45 billion in December.