Trading Venues

Pan-European fixed income multilateral trading facility Galaxy has received regulatory approval to operate its MTF for European bonds.

Despite the low trading volumes that have characterised Europe's equity markets in 2011, alternative trading venues Liquidnet and Chi-X Europe are proving resilient.

Tradeweb, the financial markets operator, has added European equity futures to its multi-dealer-to-client equity derivatives platform to streamline the current phone-based, over-the-counter trading model for block trades.

SIX Swiss Exchange and Liquidnet have launched a non-displayed block trading platform designed to allow buy-side market participants to execute large trades with one another in both Swiss and other European equities.

Canadian alternative trading system Omega ATS has expanded the list of US securities available for trading.

The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange, a commodities and derivatives alternative trading system, launched on 18 May, offering high-speed access to the mainland Chinese commodities market across time zones.

Market makers offer the best overall price improvement in NYSE and Nasdaq listed stocks, but are losing market share to faster electronic order books.

Dubai Financial Market, the exchange subsidiary of government holding company Borse Dubai, is to collaborate with the Egyptian Exchange to set up a comprehensive framework that will pave the way for listed companies, specifically those with significant operations in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, to dually list their shares.

Online alternative trading system and licensed broker-dealer Bonds.com Group has announced its senior management structure.

Canadian exchange group TMX has warned that alternative trading system Alpha ATS's IntraSpread dark pool threatens price discovery, following the approval on 8 April of the venue's redesigned internalisation engine by regulator the Ontario Securities Commission.