Liquidnet, a buy-side only non-displayed multilateral trading facility (MTF), has become the first pan-European alternative venue to trade Polish equities.
The move is a further sign that European MTFs will look to increase their coverage of central and eastern Europe in the coming months. Displayed MTF Nasdaq OMX Europe announced last September that intended to start trading stocks listed in the region in Q1 this year.
“Poland is central Europe’s biggest and most liquid market, with high levels of domestic investment and relatively low volatility,” said John Barker, head of international, Liquidnet, in a statement. “As the EU’s sixth largest economy and the only one to avoid a recession, the Polish equity market, backed by improved earnings, a strong zloty and solid macroeconomics, is highly attractive to international investors. We expect Polish trading volumes to add to the €43 billion of average daily liquidity our members had access to globally in Q4.”
Currently, the Warsaw Stock Exchange has a total market capitalisation of around €168bn from 377 listed companies.
Liquidnet now trades in 31 equity markets across five continents, including Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Latvia.
“We will continue to assess opportunities to offer trading in other global markets with several planned for launch later this year,” added Barker. “This growth reinforces our position as Europe’s number one block trading venue – particularly considering our average execution size of €1.13m in January 2010, which is the largest in the industry at over 115 times the size of the average London Stock Exchange trade.”