Turquoise adds UK stocks to aggregation service

Turquoise, the pan-European multilateral trading facility owned by the London Stock Exchange, has expanded the coverage of its TQ Lens liquidity aggregation service by adding UK stocks.
By None

Turquoise, the pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF) owned by the London Stock Exchange (LSE), has expanded the coverage of its TQ Lens liquidity aggregation service by adding UK stocks.

UK stocks were not included in TQ Lens from its launch in August 2009 because members would have incurred a stamp duty charge. Turquoise has been working with regulators to create a negotiated trade waiver that allows it to migrate trades onto its displayed MTF so they do not attract this charge.

TQ Lens routes non-displayed orders to liquidity partners, comprising investment banks Bank of America Merrill Lynch, CA Cheuvreux, Citadel Securities, Citi, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura, as well as other non-displayed MTFs.

“Since its launch, [TQ Lens] members have experienced excellent execution quality and achieved average price improvements of more than 6 bps, whilst trading in an anonymous manner and providing the market with immediate post-trade transparency,” said recently-appointed Turquoise CEO David Lester in a statement. “Turquoise has worked to extend these benefits to UK stocks as part of our commitment to improving the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of equities trading, and we expect the service to appeal even more strongly to new and existing members as a result.”

The expansion of TQ Lens’s coverage is the second increase to Turquoise’s stock universe announced this week. The MTF revealed on Tuesday that it would be adding Czech and Hungarian stocks to its displayed market from Friday. The Czech PX and Hungarian BUX indices will also be available for trading on TQ Lens, taking the number of markets available for trading on the service to 17. Clearing services for UK stocks will be provided by EuroCCP, Turquoise’s incumbent central counterparty.

The LSE completed its acquisition of Turquoise on 18 February after receiving approval from the UK’s Financial Services Authority and Office of Fair Trading. Work to integrate Turquoise and the LSE’s own dark pool Baikal has started, although the two platforms will continue to be operated separately in the short term. Baikal was originally scheduled to launch its order book segment in November last year, but this was stalled because of the Turquoise deal.

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