"Dark pools" owned by five big banks account for around half of all trades on alternative trading systems, exchange-like trading platforms that critics blame for making the markets less transparent, according to a weekly report released on Monday. The report, by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, gives data on ATS trades in the most widely traded U.S. securities from the week of May 12-18. It is significant because it is the first time ATSs have been required to disclose their trading activity publicly on a security-by-security basis. The majority of ATSs are "dark pools," anonymous trading venues that do not make any trading information available until after the trades have been completed. Until now, post-trade ATS data did not indicate to which firms the trades were attributed or what types of dark pools were most used. "FINRA hopes that providing a clear view of the level of activity handled by these ATSs, or 'dark pools,' will increase market transparency and thereby
↧