European trading activity climbed in March, signalling the strong recovery seen at the beginning of the year is set to continue.
Total market turnover for the month was €902.6 billion, the highest March figure since 2011, according to Thomson Reuters Equity Market Share Reporter.
Trading volumes were just short of the €907 billion seen in January and 11.2% higher than the €811.5 billion of market turnover seen in the short trading month of February.
Europe’s biggest exchange operator by volume, BATS Chi-X Europe, saw its market share fall for the third consecutive month, dropping from a total of 20.97% in February to 19.66% in March.
London Stock Exchange’s market share fell back slightly, with its main London market falling from 13.29% in February to 11.98% last month, putting it marginally behind Deutsche Börse’s Xetra trading platforms on 12.11%.
However, London Stock Exchange Group’s Turquoise and Borsa Italiana exchanges saw strong gains. Pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTFs) Turquoise grew its share of the European market from 7.86% to 8.81% between February and March, while Borsa Italiana’s market share increased from 6.79% to 8.56% over the same period.
Dark trading activity on MTFs was also on the up, though it saw a less marked increase compared to the broader equity market. Between February and March, dark MTF trading grew 5.6% to €52.47 billion, representing 5.8% of on-exchange equity trading.
Turquoise again posted significant gains in the dark. Its share of dark order book trading was 11.15% in March, up from 9.78% in the previous month. After a strong February, ITG-owned POSIT’s market share fell back from 13.65% to 12.91%.