Turquoise, the multilateral trading facility (MTF) operated by the London Stock Exchange (LSE), has announced a pricing promotion for all NYSE Euronext European stocks traded on its integrated order book, in a bid to capture market share from its parent's European rival.
The promotion, which takes effect on 1 March 2011, will reduce the fee for aggressive trades in all NYSE Euronext European instruments on Turquoise from 0.3 basis points to 0.25 basis points for six months.
Turquoise previously held a two-month price promotion from 1 November 2010, increasing the rebate for passive posters of liquidity to 0.4 basis points for 60 of the most liquid European stocks, double the rebate for passive flow then being offered by MTF rivals Chi-X Europe and BATS Europe.
The latest move is understood to be a response to recent market events including an announcement that NYSE Euronext is to reduce its tick sizes, a measure that has met with criticism from other trading venues as having potentially negative effects on market structure. Tick sizes had previously been regulated by an agreement with the Federation of European Stock Exchanges in summer 2009.
“Following recent market changes, and in response to client feedback, we have reduced our take-fee for all Euronext stocks traded on Turquoise,” said Natan Tiefenbrun, commercial director at Turquoise. “Our members are already benefiting from our improved, faster trading platform, with significantly higher fill-rates for aggressive orders, which in turn has encouraged more passive flow to our book.”
Turquoise migrated to its new Millennium Exchange trading platform, supplied by the LSE's Sri Lanka-based technology unit, Millennium IT, in October 2010. The LSE is also scheduled to migrate to the Millennium platform on 14 February, following a series of earlier delays.
In November 2010, NYSE Euronext published a revised fee structure that charged trading in blue-chips at a discount of between a half and a third of the tariff levied for executing mid-tier stocks, depending on volume.
As of January 2011, Turquoise had a market share of 3.9% of the Belgian BEL20 index, 4.4% of the French CAC40, 3.9% of the Dutch AEX and 2.1% of Portugal's PSI 20. This compares with 46%, 58.8%, 58% and 88% of blue-chip trading executed on NYSE Euronext's platforms respectively. Turquoise's instrument universe currently includes 39 Belgian stocks, 200 French stocks, 68 Dutch stocks and 26 Portuguese stocks.
Turquoise is also expected to launch equity derivatives in 2011, as part of a strategy by the LSE to challenge the dominant European derivatives exchanges – Eurex and NYSE Liffe – and grow its own European market share.
on 14 July 2010, NYSE Euronext announced plans for a London-based listings venue for overseas firms.