[ T R A D E T E C H 2 0 2 5 | B U Y- S I D E V I E W ]
TradeTech 2025:
The buy-side perspective
As expected, recent market volatility and the knock-on effect of Trump’ s tariffs on European markets were at the forefront of many of the conversations which took place at TradeTech 2025 in May. However, it was bilateral and offexchange trading that took the limelight for buy-siders this year, as the theme continues to gain momentum across the industry.
Retail trading and the possibility of extended trading hours also attracted attention as increasingly popular industry topics, and alongside this, buysiders also discussed the growing importance of data integration. Similarly, AI appears to be gaining increasing traction in industry debate year on year.
The bilateral trading game Challenges surrounding fragmented liquidity in the European equity markets have been a recurring topic of
NATASHA COCKSEDGE explores the key buy-side topics discussed on and off stage at TradeTech Europe 2025, covering topics including bilateral liquidity, data, the rise of AI, and the possibility of 24-hour trading.
discussion in the last few years at the TradeTech conference. As buy-siders have increasingly turned to the bilateral liquidity provision direct via EMS in a bid to manage market impact and simplify workflows, the long-term market impact of this trend has been called into question by many participants that suggest it could hamper price formation.
This increased buy-side interaction with electronic liquidity providers( ELP) and systematic internalisers( SI) in equities has been noted across the trading world, and demonstrably, in April 2024 a survey conducted by Optiver in partnership with The TRADE found that more than 25 % of buy-side firms sent over 10 % of their flow directly to market makers.
Transparency, strategy, choice and immediacy all dominated the discussions around this topic during the trade transparency and liquidity fragmentation
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