Trading in the dark just got brighter – a lot brighter – and the top dark pools were finally revealed thanks to Finra’s mandate for ATS to publish their trading data.
For the first reporting week, May 12 thru 16, Credit Suisse’s Crossfinder was the top dog in terms of volume with almost 600 million shares traded. Coming in second was Barclays LX, where upwards of 475 million shares changed hands. Rounding out the top three was UBS’ ATS, which saw close to 450 million shares change hands during the week.
According to recent report from Credit Suisse which analyzed the data, dark pools are 15.4 percent of consolidated US volume and that only 25 ATS’s trade at least five million shares per day. Also, the broker reported that securities from the S&P 500, Russell 1000, and Russell 2000 have the highest percentage of volume traded in dark pools.
In comparison, during the same week Nasdaq saw 17.4 percent of all equity volume trades, NYSE saw 11.5 percent of business, NYSE Arca 10.1 and BATS 7.6 percent.
Dark pool trading volume is now public, but reported on a delayed basis in response to mounting concerns about the amount of trading volume that occurs off-board. Regulators, looking to ease worries about trading off the public exchanges, passed a resolution that requires all dark pools and ATS’to post their volumes.For Tier I securities, which are S&P 500 stocks, Russell 1000 stocks, select ETFs, data is reported on a two week lag. For Tier 2 securities, reporting is done on a 4 week lag.