Trading Venues

The number of equity derivatives contracts traded plunged 20.4% globally to 14.9 billion in 2012, the first drop in nearly a decade, new figures from the World Federation of Exchange have shown.

Even with the continued lack of clarity on new rules set to govern US swaps trading venues, prospective market operators are keenly preparing their offerings in anticipation of Q2 launches.

Sources have confirmed to theTRADEnews.com that Citadel is pursuing a wind-down of Equiduct, the pan-European retail focused trading platform in which it owns a majority stake.

Alternative trading systems will gain a solid foothold in Asian markets, garnering almost 25% of market share by the end of 2014, according to a leading research agency.

A technological error at a market data hub operated by Nasdaq OMX led to stale data that left traders unable to determine US stock prices for a short period yesterday.

Alternative venues in Japan and Australia ended 2012 on a high note, while a spike in equity trading in China led volume growth across Asia in December.

The final month of 2012 marked a five-year low for European equity trading, but gains were experienced by the region’s domestic stock exchanges, which managed to claw back market share from alternative venues during the last year.

Equities volumes were a mixed bag in November, with some exchanges enjoying volume gains while others suffered declines during the month.

Alternate venue Chi-X Australia has hired Jamie Crank as head of market operations while in Hong Kong, block crossing platform Liquidnet has snared Eddie To as head of legal and compliance, Asia Pacific.

BATS Chi-X Europe has recorded its second market share rise in as many months, taking trading activity on the dual order book multilateral trading facility back to pre-merger levels.