Fidessa Launches Australian Fragmentation Tools

Trading connectivity and platform provider Fidessa has set its sights on Australian market fragmentation with the launches of its Fidessa Fragmentation Index (FFI) and Fragulator tools for Australian market participants.

"The changes to Australia's market integrity rules will transform the trading landscape and require participants to navigate the marketplace in an entirely different way," says Steve Grob, director of group strategy at Fidessa. "The new rules also require firms to achieve best execution, and so both the buy side and sell side now need to pay close attention to where trading is taking place. These tools provide the comprehensive and unbiased view that firms need to see what is happening and to meet their new obligations."

The offerings are based on existing tools currently available for traders in the North American, Europe and Asia.

Liquidity fragmentation in Australia is relatively light given that the first alternative trading system (ATS), Chi-X Australia, launched on Nov. 9.

"Analyzing the market at the end of the second week of Chi-X Australia being in operation, it is interesting to see that they achieved just over 1 percent of trading volume in the ASX 200," says Grob. "By comparison, Chi-X Japan took almost six months to achieve that level."