31 October 2008 News

 

BATS Europe launches

BATS Europe has begun live trading on its Multilateral Trading Facility in Europe. "This is a tremendous milestone in the history of BATS," said Mark Hemsley, chief executive of BATS Europe. "We are excited about the opportunity in front of us and look forward to bringing greater efficiency to traders in Europe, following our mission of Making Markets Better."
BATS Europe currently offers trading in 10 securities and will roll out London Stock Exchange, NYSE Euronext and Xetra securities by November 19^th.

The initial stocks are Barclays, BG Group, Billiton, BP, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch Shell and Vodafone Group. BATS and some other MTFs, share a common symbology.

In the US, BATS Exchange launched on the 24^th of October and intends to be live in all US-listed symbols by the 6^th of November. The firm, which began offering US trading in January 2006, currently claims to account for about 12% US matched market share.

BATS Exchange launched on with two active symbols - Aeropostale (ARO) and Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA). BATS, which filed for exchange status in November 2007 and received approval in August 2008, currently claims to match about 12% of daily US equity volume.