Buy-side Perspectives Issue 8 | Page 8

Equities

Due diligence in an uncertain new market

It ’ s no surprise that MiFID II was the top concern highlighted by senior buy-side traders at the recent 5 th annual ATF Global Summit in London on 2 February 2017 . Among other notable changes , MiFID II marks the final end of the road for the broker crossing network ( BCN ) – a service which has long been used by the buy side to minimise market impact . From 3 January 2018 , all former BCNs will have to either reclassify as an MTF or an SI , or cease operations immediately . At the same time , the muchdebated MiFID II volume caps for dark trading will be introduced , changing the way the buy-side interacts with dark liquidity in the EU forever . In addition , national exchanges are seeking to regain the trust of long-only buy-side traders by championing a number of new
14th ATF Equities , London , October 2016 block trading services , all of which
Copyright : K & K Global Consulting 2017 essentially promise larger trade sizes than the traditional vanilla lit markets , which have seen order sizes consistently decline over the last decade . Either way , there seems little doubt that a shift away from dark trading to the lit markets will not occur , regardless of the intentions of regulators . At a recent 14 th ATF Equities debate in London , one senior buy-side trader commented an opinion on the relative appeal of different parts of the market : “ The lit market will be one of the last places I would look for liquidity ,” he said .
8 www . buysideintel . com March 2017