Turquoise, a broker-backed equity trading platform, will offer trading in Spanish stocks from 16 February.
From Monday, the multilateral trading facility (MTF) will offer three stocks on its integrated lit and dark book – BBVA, Banco Santander and Telefonica – and two stocks – Metrovacesa and Solaria Energia Y Medio Ambiente – on its dark book.
Another group of 95 Spanish securities will start trading on 23 February. The 32 remaining shares on Spain’s IBEX index will trade on Turquoise’s integrated book, while 63 other Spanish stocks will be available via the MTF’s dark book.
Trading Spanish stocks is more challenging for MTFs than in other European markets. In order to transfer stock ownership,
the Spanish central securities depository needs an identification number that can only be generated via the primary exchange. To produce the required number Interdin, a local Spanish broker, will cross all of Turquoise’s Spanish trades with itself. Turquoise will close its Spanish market ten minutes earlier than the rest of Europe, at 16.20 GMT, to allow for this process to take place.
Rival MTF Chi-X, which started offering all IBEX 35 stocks from 22 January, has started to build up Spanish trading activity. According to Chi-X, it executed 202 trades in Spanish stocks yesterday, totalling €531,235. Fellow MTF Nasdaq OMX Europe also started trading in all IBEX 35 stocks last Monday, but has so far failed to register a trade, according to the Fidessa Fragmentation Index (FFI), a daily measure of where European liquidity lies across MTFs and exchanges.