Pan-European equities trading division of Aquis Exchange, Aquis Markets has launched conditional order functionality across the UK and EU platforms.
David Stevens
Speaking to The TRADE, David Stevens, chief operating officer, asserted: “The introduction of conditionals is an exciting step for Aquis and one which progresses our block trading functionality, along with the future collaboration with OptimX that we announced at the end of 2023.”
In practise, members using the functionality send an ‘indication of interest’ (IOI), subsequently met with a ‘firm-up invite’ in the event of a potential match.
Users have a 300 millisecond time limit to proceed with the trade and accept the invite. Trades will take place on Aquis’ dark pool – Aquis Matching Pool.
The offering allows users to avoid the risk of over-trading while posting the same liquidity on multiple venues simultaneously.
There is the opportunity to set a minimum execution size as well as specifying whether to limit execution against only those order which meet the large-in-scale (LIS) criteria.
“The addition of conditional orders to our UK and EU platforms is an important extension to AMP, the Aquis dark pool, and means that the exchange now offers a full suite of key trading mechanisms – allowing our customers access to liquidity in a broad range of trading scenarios,” said Stevens.
Back in August 2023, Aquis Exchange expanded its block crossing remit with a minority stake in US-based equities block trading start-up OptimX Markets.
The acquisition, completed as part of a consortium which also includes the venture capital arm of Deutsche Boerse Group, DB1 Ventures, was at the time earmarked to support this expansion into conditional block trading and crossing.
Aquis members are able to elect either a ‘regular’ conditional order, which can match with AMP liquidity or other conditional orders, or they will be able to choose for the order to also interact with clients of OptimX.
Speaking at the time, Jonathan Clelland, Aquis’ chief operating officer, explained: “This has been something in the making for quite a while. It’s part of Aquis’ developed strategy. We added the dark pool last year, then we added the dark lit order sweep. This is the next step, putting conditionals in, because clients want that capability […] Aquis will develop its conditionals alongside its other products and then when OptimX Markets is ready to go live with banks and institutions on blocks, they will work with us as we’re a logical partner in terms of their execution.”