Source: CA Cheuvreux
Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux publishes its January Market Indicators produced in conjunction with TAG.
Key findings for January:
* Long-term fragmentation returned in January following technical issues at the 2009 year end for almost all trading venues. Both Chi-x and BATS succeeded in improving market share. Chi-X now has almost 16% of total market share, and is already the leading trading venue by turnover (with LSE and Borsa Italiana considered as two separate venues).
* On the FTSE 100, Chi-X's average share of volumes in the last week of January stood at 27%, and it exceeded 50% of volumes on the LSE. If this trend continues, it questions whether the reference price should stay on this primary market.
* Most Chi-X and BATS bid-ask spreads improved, confirming that there is a direct correlation between spread and market share. In January this could have been caused by new High Frequency Traders on MTFs.
* With high-frequency orders blurring pre-trade transparency and without any clean post-trade tape, it is becoming increasingly difficult every month to optimise trading without heavy technological investment.