Turquoise Launches Block Discovery

Barclays, Instinet, ITG, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Neonet and Société Générale have all signed for the service. The firm, owned by the London Stock Exchange Group, says that it expects Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, UBS and Deutsche Bank to join shortly.

The new service is integrated with Turquoise's Midpoint Dark Book, matching block indications and requiring firm orders to be sent to Turquoise Uncross, which incorporates randomization technology to reduce the influence of predatory low-latency trading behavior.

"The demands of our clients for us to seek out liquidity, combined with an evolving European regulatory landscape which is moving towards the use of larger block trades, make continued development in this area essential," says Adam Toms, CEO, Instinet Europe. "[Instinet] sees this new Turquoise Block Discover service as an innovative and timely addition to the market. It provides us with the ability to place a conditional order to a venue offering increased chances of finding a larger block of dark liquidity, while simultaneously being able to continue to search other liquidity pools."