Available immediately, Instinet has added a second pre-open VWAP (Volume Weighted Average Price) cross to its JapanCrossing dark pool. The new 08:40* cross, which follows the existing 08:30 VWAP cross, matches buyers and sellers at the stock's primary market VWAP for the day. Reports on preliminary executions and residuals are sent to clients by 08:50, and market impact is mitigated as the trade is not printed until after VWAP has been determined by the Tokyo Stock Exchange at approximately 15:10. Participants in the 08:30 cross also have the option to roll-over residuals or input new orders for the second cross.

Additionally, Instinet has added support for "iceberg" orders in CBX ASIA, Instinet's displayed liquidity pool for Japanese and Hong Kong equities. Launched in Asia in 2001, first in Japan under Instinet's Japanese PTS (Proprietary Trading System) License, CBX ASIA is a real-time, low-latency central limit order book with traditional price/time priority and rich order functionality. Unlike Instinet CBX in the U.S., which is based on the same technology and is the market's second largest independent dark pool, CBX ASIA is a displayed platform whose market data is available to clients, as fully-hidden orders are prohibited under securities laws in certain Asian jurisdictions.

"In a low-volume market where large trades are even more difficult to execute, it has become imperative for clients to have the ability to source liquidity in alternative venues like JapanCrossing and CBX ASIA to help minimise market impact," said Nick McDonald, Co-Head of Equities, Asia-Pacific at Instinet. "As an agency-only broker, we are driven solely by our commitment to helping clients achieve best execution, and we believe that these enhancements to our two platforms in Japan offer yet another means to that end."

CBX ASIA, JapanCrossing and KoreaCrossTM, Instinet's dark pool crossing platform for Korean equities, are available to both institutions and broker-dealers and are accessible through Instinet's Newport® 3 EMS, the Instinet Execution ExpertsTM suite of algorithms, directly via FIX or through multiple third-party OMS/EMS platforms. In May 2009, JapanCrossing and CBX ASIA saw an average of 2.81 percent and 11.23 percent, respectively, of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's total daily turnover flow through them, according to Instinet's internal measurements.

* All times are JST (Japan Standard Time).