Barclays Posts Low-Touch Trades

Traders Magazine, January 2013

John D'Antona Jr.

Barclays is now posting its low-touch trade advertisements in "near real-time" on Bloomberg's IOIA network.

This new feature lets the buyside and brokers view Barclays trading activity in both high-touch and low-touch executed trades throughout the day. Previously, any low-touch, or electronic, trade advertisements were posted the next day.

A trade advertisement is a report of a broker's completed trade or trades. It includes the number of shares executed. It complements an indication of interest, a quote-like notice the broker posts indicating it has either a buyer or seller of a particular stock. A high-touch advertisement is for a trade completed manually by the desk, versus a low-touch ad where the trade is executed electronically.

High-touch executions were already being posted on the network, said Bill Bell, global head of equities electronic distribution at Barclays. The new low-touch advertisements are expected to boost liquidity and block trading, he added. Also, the move from a T+1 trade-reporting methodology to same day is also expected to help boost trading activity.

"The purpose of this is to let clients find liquidity, reduce fragmentation and make trading more efficient," Bell said.

The new functionality is voluntary, Bell added. Clients can opt out of having all flow advertised or choose on an order-by-order basis.

"Some buysiders might want to stay anonymous, and this allows them to remain that way," he said.

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