Swiss investment bank UBS says its global equities business has launched an alternative trading system (ATS) for crossing orders in US stocks.
The bank says it created the UBS PIN ATS to complement its internal crossing network - UBS PIN Cross - and provide a non-displayed liquidity pool for clients trading in US stocks The ATS order book will not be published, or generate IOIs or signaling.
UBS PIN Cross has been operating since 2006 and offers interaction with a subset of the firm’s equity order flow. The internal crossing pool was designed to discretely cross with only natural liquidity, without information leakage.
Raul Esquivel, head, equities in the Americas, UBS, says: "The combination of these two platforms gives clients the best of both worlds, a natural-only pool of liquidity for highly sensitive situations, and the much broader PIN ATS pool, which brings together a wide variety of order flows.”
“PIN Cross has been very effective, but the selective nature of this internal pool did exclude certain sources of crossing opportunities," adds Will Sterling, global head, direct execution, UBS. "PIN ATS will give clients access to an additional, more inclusive pool of liquidity, which we believe will offer clients incrementally improved crossing opportunities – translating to reduced signaling risk and measurable spread savings."
UBS clients trading electronically via algorithms or DMA tools will automatically have access to the ATS with no additional trading steps or fees.