Sell-side negotiation platform Squawker for block trades has now signed up 80 firms and has an average trade size of €386,000 (US$527,000).
In comparison, buy-side focused block-trading venue operator Liquidnet earlier this month reported a European average execution size of US$1.3 million in 2013, a 28% increase from 2012. Squawker refused to disclose its trading volumes.
The pan-European sell-side platform aims to provide a neutral venue for sell-side firms to negotiate high-touch orders that they cannot match internally, free of algorithms and high-frequency trading.
Clients include tier-one investment banks and agency brokers as well as private banks and other niche sell-side firms.
Chris Gregory, CEO and co-founder at Squawker, said the platform has been providing a way to find an counterpart for orders that are difficult to execute on the order books or dark pools.
“With Squawker established and trading, traders are once more able to execute natural block liquidity,” he said.
Squawker figures released today also showed 45% of trades are agreed within five minutes, rising to 70% within 20 minutes, with the exception of interests in illiquid/micro-cap stocks. Nearly 90% of trade invitations are accepted.