We’re not too sure what all the excitement is about… at big xyt we have been researching the changing shape of the dark landscape for years. In fact, rather like long established theories, on the face of it European dark trading volumes have remained relatively steady.
Our team of curious data scientists likes to help the trading community to explore a bit deeper and it’s easy to see that Pan-European dark volumes have been in a fairly tight range with around 8% share of adjusted (our proxy for addressable volumes) for some time, only getting squeezed temporarily with the onset of double volume caps in mid 2018.
However if you scratch beneath the surface you will see a different story emerging in the UK: 12% of trading in blue chip stocks is now in the dark and over 15% of mid caps are trading this way (see the chart below) – pretty much double the Pan-European average.
We believe there’s a good reason why… but not all theories apply forever.
Market Share for UK250 Stocks
