Morgan Stanley has become the second Wall Street firm in as many weeks to invest in Missouri-based ECN operator Bats Trading.
In a short statement, Morgan Stanley says it has acquired an undisclosed minority stake in Bats (Better Alternative Trading System), which is based in Kansas City.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal follows last month's news that investment bank Lehman Brothers had bought a minority stake in the Bats business.
The platform, which is designed to handle high-speed, high-volume and anonymous algorithmic trading for broker-dealers, launched in January 2006. The system was recently averaging more than 40 million shares per day in trading volume.
The two deals are the latest in a string of investments made by Wall Street banks in alternative trading venues and ECNs following Nyse's merger with Archipelago and Nasdaq's purchase of the Inet e-trading system last year.