Exchange competition: It’s a win-win game, for now

"Important structural changes are taking place in Europe" David Easthope, Celent

Chi-X, still the only order-book-model pan-European alternative trading system, has made impressive progress since it launched in April 2007. Volumes have soared and Chi-X has made a significant inroad into the market share of Europe’s leading exchanges, reporting on some occasions as much as 13.18% of total trading in FTSE 100 stocks, 6.82% of Dax 30 trading, 10% of all trades in Dutch AEX 25 companies and 5.36% of CAC 40 volume.

Plus, an upstart London-based exchange offering a quote-driven market catering mainly to smaller brokers, has also shown impressive growth, winning market share from the London Stock Exchange. In the first quarter of 2008, Plus traded more per day on average than AIM. Plus also traded more than half the volume in more than 600 small and mid-cap companies in March 2008, the most recent month for which figures are available. In the first three months of the year, Plus traded 1.1 million bargains representing 6.26 billion shares worth £8.83 billion, more than in the whole of 2007.

However, European exchanges, including the LSE, continue to post strong volume growth themselves.