Pan-European MTF Turquoise is to join Bats, Chi-x, and Nasdaq OMX as the fourth member of an industry working group set up to develop and maintain a uniform symbology framework for European equities.
The working group was formed in October 2008 to address the challenges posed by the multiplicity of stock symbols used in European equities trading. Its aim is to reduce complexity in a rapidly fragementing market, enabling market data from European trading venues to be consolidated more easily and for smart order routing to operate more effectively.
Adrian Farnham, chief operating officer for Turquoise comments: "We are aiming to implement the symbology on the Turquoise MTF in early Q2 2009 and anticipate that our members will benefit from a range of efficiencies as a result."
The initiative could prove a precursor to development of a consolidated data feed, an issue which came to the fore last year following the day-long shut down of the London Stock Exchange's trading system. The majority of traders did not switch to alternative execution venues because they still rely on the LSE to provide benchmark pricing data.
In January, Thomson Reuters launched a consolidated pan-European securities data feed in an effort to combat the fragmentation of market data prices under the MiFID regulatory regime.