According to figures released today by Reuters comparing the relative market share of Europe’s various equity trading venues, new entrant MarkitBOAT has made substantial inroads in the publication of trades space, once carried out exclusively by domestic exchanges.
In each of the three months following the introduction of MiFID, the value of European equity trades reported by MarkitBOAT was the third highest after Euronext and London Stock Exchange (LSE).
MarkitBOAT also published the second highest volume of European shares, behind only LSE. Although LSE published over twice the volume in shares as MarkitBOAT, MarkitBOAT in turn was significantly ahead of Euronext and Xetra. MarkitBOAT also published the second highest value and volume of shares on a ‘per country of listing’ basis including the Italian, Spanish, UK and Euronext markets.
The statistics demonstrate that trade data has become fragmented since MiFID was introduced on 1 November 2007, although many players may be unaware of the extent of this, particularly in the domestic markets where the data from local exchanges remains the focus.
Andrew Allwright, business manager for exchange-traded instruments, Reuters, comments, “These authoritative figures from Reuters show factually that European stocks are exhibiting the trends that many predicted before MiFID came into operation. Across Europe the market is fragmenting and many domestic exchanges are losing some of their traditional franchises as traders use alternative venues. The market share data shows how the Reuters .x RIC allows our clients to track over 90% of trading activity across European equities in real time to ensure MiFID compliance.”
Reuters will now be reporting the data for equity volumes across Europe on a monthly basis to give a developing picture as to how the market is evolving post-MiFID.
In November 2007, Reuters announced the launch of a new Reuters Instrument Code (RIC), known as '.x', which offers clients the ability to see the best bid and offer price on major stocks wherever they are quoted as a cost effective means of consolidating data in one place.