ITG (NYSE:ITG), a leading independent broker and financial technology provider, today announced plans to launch POSIT Auction, a new lit segment on the POSIT MTF which will run periodic auctions for matching opportunities submitted to the POSIT Auction order book.
As a lit book, POSIT Auction is designed to offer a low-impact approach to finding liquidity.
POSIT Auction will operate with controls to help traders protect themselves during price discovery, including price collars, limit and peg order types. Pre-trade transparency will be limited to indicative price and volume. Auction periods will commence as soon as a matching opportunity is found, and will initially be set to run for a fixed call period of 50 milliseconds plus a random call period of up to 50 milliseconds before the uncross/auction completion.
“With the MiFID II trading caps taking effect in January, there is an intense focus on sourcing high-quality liquidity,” said Duncan Higgins, Head of Electronic Products for ITG in EMEA. “POSIT Auction is designed to provide valuable trading opportunities in circumstances where liquidity is reduced due to the dark trading caps. It will work as an integral part of our POSIT MTF, in addition to our POSIT Alert block crossing network.”
Subject to successful regulatory approval, POSIT Auction is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2017. It will be available for the same universe of stocks traded in the POSIT dark segment. It will also operate a post-close trading session.