Liquidnet today announced BATS Trading Inc. (BATS) has become its 22nd Streaming Liquidity Partner (SLP).
This liquidity alliance enables Liquidnet's nearly 500 Member firms, via Liquidnet H2O, unique access to approximately 700 million additional shares of liquidity per day*.
BATS has integrated the ability to cross with Liquidnet H2O via its new Dark Scan order type and joins Liquidnet H2O's growing list of Streaming Liquidity Partners (SLPs) who include some of the industry's leading brokerages, exchanges and ECNs.
"Through our Supernatural strategies, our Members are able to cross with approximately three billion** shares in Liquidnet H2O, and 2.5 billion shares in our natural pool resulting in industry-leading crossing rates***," said Seth Merrin, Liquidnet CEO. "The combination of Liquidnet Natural - Liquidnet's natural negotiation ATS, and Liquidnet H2O, which now includes broker, exchange and ECN flow, expands the breadth and depth of the global institutional marketplace. In fact, bringing retail investors into the institutional marketplace is a huge step forward in helping to fix the market structure and provide better executions for both institutional and retail investors. BATS Trading is a valuable partner in Liquidnet's institutional marketplace which provides a safer, more efficient environment for institutions to execute their trades."
"Liquidnet's Membership represents some of the biggest institutions in the world and we are glad to add them to our Dark Liquidity Partner program," said BATS Chief Executive Joe Ratterman. "Our ability to interact with Liquidnet H2O and other Dark Liquidity Partners helps to ensure that our customers' orders are filled efficiently. As we approach Exchange status in the U.S., we look forward to growing in this and other areas."
*As of March 31, 2008.
*Orders, in shares, available to interact in Liquidnet H2O to be executed automatically at the mid-point. Share number for the quarter ended March 31, 2008 was more than 2.9 Billion shares.
***Crossing rate is defined as the percent of shares executed within Liquidnet (internal) versus the total number of shares executed by Liquidnet (internal and external). The crossing rate for all three Supernatural strategies (Liquidnet Only, Adaptive and Aggressive) is 63 percent. This compared to an average 4-11 percent crossing rate in the industry according to Aite Group's September 2007 report "Rise of Dark Pools and Rebirth of ECNs: Death to Exchanges?"