Dealing volumes over the Turquoise multilateral trading facility slumped by more than half last week as liquidity agreements with market-makers expired.
The value of shares traded on Turquoise between Monday and Thursday last week dropped 51% to €3 billion, from €6.1 billion in the previous week. European market share stats also headed south, sliding to three per cent from 5.6% a week earlier, according to figures compiled by rival platform Bats Trading.
The fall-off in business coincides with the expiry of six-month liquidity agreements signed by Turquoise and its nine investment bank backers.
Bats says the dip in volumes has enabled it to overtake Turquoise in FTSE 100 share for the first time.
Bats Europe says it accounted for 2.67% of trading in FTSE 100 stocks earlier today, compared with Turquoise's 2.63% share, making it the second biggest challenger to the London Stock Exchange after Chi-X, which took 14.46% of FTSE 100 trading.
However by the close the positions had been reversed, with Batcs accounting for 2.63% of stocks traded and Turquoise taking 3.94% Ftse 100 share,