The virt-x pan-European blue chip exchange claims to have achieved an average daily market share of 9.2% of the DJ Stoxx 600 during the second quarter of 2002, below its first year target of ten per cent.
Announcing trading data for its first year of operation, virt-x says its market share exceeded ten per cent on just 13 trading days over the last quarter. The company was created by a merger between London's loss-making screen-based exchange Tradepoint and the SWX Swiss Exchange.
Since launch last year, 7.6 million trades have been executed on virt-x with a total value of €626 billion. On the basis of these figures, the fledgeling cross-border exchange expects to report a small pre and post-tax profit when it announces its results for the six months to 30 June 2002.
Alan Hodson, global head of equities at virt-x shareholder UBS Warburg, comments: "Given the weakness of European markets during the past year and the resulting fall in equity trading volumes, virt-x's first year performance has confirmed that there is demand for a pan-European blue chip market. The recent market turbulence has also highlighted the importance of cost. virt-x is, so far, the only European market to offer investors a truly integrated straight through processing model with choice of settlement venue. This gives users the potential to reduce the cost of cross border trading."