“Conditional Orders Help our Clients to Navigate Fragmented Markets.”

In today’s fragmented markets, liquidity navigation is a challenge for all trading participants, amplified by events such as the Ukraine crisis. In a new video, Tony Shaw, Executive Director London Office and Head Sales UK & Ireland at SIX Swiss Exchange, explains how traders are using conditional orders to manage liquidity fragmentation.

With regards to Swiss Blue Chips, Tony Shaw points out that over a quarter of trades on Dark MTFs are executed away from the Primary Best Bid Offer (PBBO) midpoint price – contrary to SwissAtMid, where this is never the case. Using Block orders in SwissAtMid therefore enables participants to avoid trading at stale prices.

Watch the full interview to discover which factors traders take into account when handling firm-up requests, how conditional orders differ between venues and under which circumstances SIX Swiss Exchange is often the cheapest venue for block trades in Swiss equities.

Stale Prices and the Price of Being Stale

Dark trading mechanisms have become an integral part of the European liquidity landscape. In Trading InfoSnack #9, the equity experts at SIX Swiss Exchange are evaluating what proportion of trading activity occurs at the Primary Best Bid Offer (PBBO) and the impact of trading at a ‘stale price’, while #10 looks at Order Routing: Analysing the Optimisation Problem with the “Rule of Three”.

Unique Liquidity in Swiss Shares

With the introduction of Block orders, SIX Swiss Exchange enhanced its block trading capabilities in SwissAtMid with the added benefit of offering interaction with existing unique liquidity. A meaningful segment of this liquidity is not available for interaction with on any other dark conditional venue, allowing participants to manage fragmentation and execute large blocks more efficiently.

The video was recorded by Trader TV during TradeTech Europe 2022, where SIX Swiss Exchange was present with a booth.

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