Instinet Incorporated, a global leader in electronic trading and agency-only brokerage services, today announced that its European agency brokerage subsidiary, Instinet Europe Limited (IEL), has further enhanced its BlockMatch MTF through the introduction of the industry's first pan-European closing cross for European equities.
Available immediately, the BlockMatch Closing Cross is a continuous cross that operates daily from 16:40-17:00 (UK time), with all matches during the 20-minute crossing window occurring based on time priority and executing at the Primary Exchanges' closing auction uncrossing price. The BlockMatch Closing Cross, which is available to both institutions and broker-dealers, also includes a minimum fill feature designed to encourage participants to post true, large ADV block orders without fear of information leakage. Orders can be sent to BlockMatch from most order and execution management systems, including Instinet's Newport 3 EMS.
Commenting on the announcement, Richard Balarkas, CEO of Instinet Europe, said, "Since we launched BlockMatch last year, clients have continued to look to Instinet to identify innovative ways to help them further improve execution performance. Last year, we were the first broker in Europe to offer a link to another broker's dark pool and now, by introducing Europe's first closing cross, we have further enhanced BlockMatch to help buyside firms improve their execution quality without risk of gaming or information leakage."
Instinet has a forty year heritage of developing innovative trading technologies designed to help clients improve their execution performance. In 1986, the firm introduced the industry's first securities crossing platform and in 1969 the world's first significant electronic trading venue. BlockMatch is one of eight ATS platforms offered by Instinet globally, joining CBX, the continuous dark pool that averaged over 60 million shares traded per day in Q1 2009, and the VWAP, Intraday and Overnight crosses that comprise Instinet's U.S. Crossing offering and CBX ASIA, KoreaCross and JapanCrossing in Asia.