Reuters has released the first complete figures for equity trading across Europe since the introduction of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) last November.
They show that, as predicted, there has been considerable fragmentation of the European equity market with new entrant MarkitBOAT making substantial inroads into the publication of trades once carried by domestic exchanges.
In each of the first three months of MiFID, MarkitBOAT has achieved the third highest value of trades reported across all European equities after Euronext and the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
When performing the same analysis based on the number of shares traded, MarkitBOAT published the second highest volume to the LSE, although the LSE published over twice the volume in shares as MarkitBOAT, who in turn were significantly ahead of Euronext and Xetra. MarkitBOAT also published the second highest value and volume of shares on a per country of listing basis including the Italian, Spanish, UK and Euronext markets.
The statistics demonstrate that trade data has become fragmented although many players may be unaware of the extent of this, particularly in the domestic markets where the data from the local exchanges remains the focus.
Reuters will now be reporting the data for equity volumes across Europe on a monthly basis to give a developing picture as to how the market is evolving post-MiFID. The information will allow clients to measure the quality of their trades, ensuring that they remain compliant with the best execution elements of MiFID.
In November, Reuters announced the launch of a new Reuters Instrument Code, known as “.x”, which offers clients the ability to see the best bid and offer price on major stocks wherever they are quoted as a cost effective means of consolidating data in one place.