This year Archipelago is recognized as the best equities ECN because it has proven itself to be more flexible and responsive to the needs of its users than arch-rival Island.
The two ECNs handle a similar turnover but concentrate on different securities. Island is focused on Nasdaq securities and exchange-traded funds while Archipelago is concentrating its efforts on adding non-Nasdaq listed securities to the Nasdaq stocks it already handles.
Archipelago has had a very busy year, both buying REDIBook ECN and merging with the Pacific Stock Exchange. This has helped Archipelago to boost its volumes, which now outstrip Island's on a regular basis.
Archipelago is widely praised by traders for its market structure, which sends orders to whichever market centre offers the best price. If the price on a security offered by Archipelago is inferior to that of another market centre, the Archipelago system automatically re-routes the order to help users achieve the best price. Island, which is criticized by many traders for its policy of internalizing all order flow, is responding with a plan to offer cost-efficient outbound routing in the future.
The trading interfaces of both Archipelago and Island are easy to use and flexible.