European equity markets saw strong trading volumes in 2015, according to figures from several major exchange operators.
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Deutsche Boerse Group and SIX Swiss Exchange have released statistics revealing a improving liquidity environment across equities markets compared to 2014.
LSEG reported a 16.2% increase in average daily trades in the UK, and a 10% increase in average daily trades in Italy over the year as a whole. Over the same period, Turquoise increased total number of trades by 2.6%. Most notably, Turquoise MidPoint increased its total number of trades by 22.9%, with a total value increase of 26.7%. Turquoise has recently been pushing block trading solutions via its MidPoint order book as a way to help market participants deal with the impact of MiFID II.
SIX Swiss Exchange reported a 34.3% increase in the number of equities trades across Europe, as well as a 19.5% increase in total turnover versus 2014. On 15 January 2015 SIX Swiss Exchange reached a record high total trading value of CHF 27.7 billion and trading value of 949,988 on one trading day.
Christoph Landis, Division CEO SIX Swiss Exchange said: "2015 was very successful for us. We recorded the highest trading turnover ever to be achieved on one trading day on 15 January… We also celebrated 20 years of fully electronic stock exchange trading.”
Deutsche Boerse Group announced its cash markets recorded a total of €1.64 trillion in turnover in 2015, a 28% increase over the previous year which totalled €1.28 trillion. Exchange traded fund (ETF) trading on its Xetra platform achieved €188.9 billion in 2015, the second strongest year since its launch in 2000.
Despite being a historically slow trading month, exchange groups also reported some significant milestones in December. LSEG’s Turquoise MidPoint saw a massive 46% increase in trades in December 2015 versus December 2014. Deutsche Boerse Group’s December order book turnover also increased by 12% year-on-year.