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O
ne of the fundamental objectives of MiFID II is to
increase transparency and move trading activity
onto lit venues, but weeks into the new regime
record block trading and periodic auction volumes have
dominated regulatory headlines. Large-in-scale (LIS) ven-
ues were widely tipped to the primary beneficiaries of new
requirements which saw the closure of broker crossing
networks (BCNs) and the rise of systematic internalisers
(SIs).
In the previous edition of The TRADE magazine, pub-
lished just weeks before MiFID II came into effect on 3
January, industry participants and experts dissected the
block trading landscape and made predictions on the mi-
gration of order flow from BCNs. One trend became clear
– periodic auctions, LIS venues and finally SIs were the
venues to bet on in a post-MiFID II world, not necessarily
on-exchange or lit venues.
In a Liquidnet member presentation in February the firm
said that, at a high level at least, there hasn’t been a sig-
nificant difference in dark and lit activity, and lit volumes
experienced no major change since 3 January. Instead, Liq-
uidnet found that periodic auction volumes had exploded,
LIS activity had continued to increase and SIs even snuck
in to steal a slice of the pie.
Issue 55
TheTradeNews.com
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