Aquis Markets, the pan-European equities trading division of Aquis Exchange PLC, has launched new ‘Dark to Lit Sweep’ functionality on its UK and EU platforms. Dark to Lit Sweep allows members to sweep from Aquis’ dark book, the Aquis Matching Pool (AMP), to the lit book with a single order.

Using Aquis Dark to Lit Sweep, members can further benefit from Aquis’ low latency technology to find the best possible price across both order books, while keeping market impact low. Members can choose for their order to be cancelled if no immediate opposing order is found on either book, or they can rest on the lit book until a buyer/seller matches with the remainder of their order.

A variation of Dark to Lit Sweep is also available for liquidity providers and non-client proprietary business, who can use the Dark to Lit Post-Only (DLPO) option to check AMP for any mid-point liquidity before posting the remainder of their order on the Lit book.

Aquis added dark trading to its suite of trading services in 2022 after assuming the assets of UBS MTF, subsequently migrating it onto in-house technology and launching an EU equivalent alongside AMP UK. AMP has seen a 25% increase in average daily value traded in April 2023 compared to April 2022 and added 6 additional users.

David Stevens, Chief Revenue Officer, said:

“At Aquis we are intent on offering our members multiple options to execute their flow with as minimal impact and cost as possible. That is why we launched our dark pool (AMP) a year ago and continue to enhance the functionality of Auction on Demand (AoD). We intend to further expand our range of order types and functionality in 2023. Dark to Lit sweep is a natural extension of our overall strategy and will let members access AMP and the unique attributes of our lit book with maximum efficiency.”