In the European trading and equity business, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The biggest trend in trading and execution, according to industry leaders, remains the convergence of high-touch and electronic trading, amid a push for automation and algorithmic trading by the buy-side.
“It’s been ongoing for years but definitely an accelerating trend as more and more client desks become automated and quantitative,” said Antoine Bisson, head of European execution for Exane BNP Paribas.
Couple that with 2018’s update to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and the Covid-19 pandemic — both of which continue to significantly impact the relationship between sell-side firms and their clients — and the result is Institutional Investor’s All-Europe Equity Trading Team.
For the All-Europe (Developed Europe) Equity Trading Team, Institutional Investor polled buy-side traders and other investment professionals at asset management firms with investments in European equities, asking them to rate brokers on various attributes for trading and execution. We received responses from 141 individual traders and portfolio managers at 114 firms.
Respondents were asked to rank their trading services providers on attributes for Electronic Trading, High-Touch Trading, Portfolio Trading, and Delta One/ETFs.
Attributes for Electronic Trading:
- Algorithm Customization
- Algorithm Performance
- Market Access & Transparency
- Service Quality & Support
- Transaction Cost Analysis
Attributes for High-Touch Trading:
- Access to Block Liquidity
- Access to Small / Mid-cap Liquidity
- Maintaining Order Anonymity
- Minimize Market Impact
- Quality of IoIs
- Service Quality
Attributes for Portfolio Trading:
- Client Service Quality & Support
- Global Market Access
- Index & Portfolio Research
- Pre and Post Trade
- Reliability of Settlement/Back Office
Attributes for Delta One/ETFs Trading:
- Access to Differential Liquidity
- Price Improvement
- Derivatives Research
- Derivatives Sales
Participants first rated their top firms within each attribute on a scale from 1-5. A numerical score was produced by weighting each vote based on both the responding firm’s European equity commissions and their rating. Scores for each attribute were aggregated together to create the top Trading Leaders.
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