Trading Stocks in Europe

S

slidertrader

I am interested in learning more about market structure and mechanics in Europe.

- Do companies list / trade on multiple exchanges - if so, what are the settlement/clearning implications?
- can you trade on ECNs?
- do the exchanges use a specialist or market maker system?

Does anybody know any good resources / books that would help me get a handle on these questions?

Thanks.
 
LSE(London), EuroNext(France), and Xetra/Ibis(German) are the main 3 exchanges. Then there's the smaller Spanish, Italian, Swiss, and Northern Europe exchanges.

Not much in "ECN's" yet as far as I know, although IB shows Winterflood as an additional marketplace in the UK.

ETF trading volumes are almost non-existent in Euronext and London. Spreads are wider than US listed stuff.

London also has .005% stamp duty. Only way around that is to trade professionally.

But the biggest obstacle for non-professionals is commissions. They're too high and make overall trading very difficult.

Did I mention commish is too high?

www.interactivebrokers.com is a good starting place for which exchanges are out there with relative accessibility.
 
Thanks to Mifid directive, ECNs are supposed to be created soon on Euronext.

And I think some dark pools are already available in Germany. NYFIX Millenium Europe is supposed to be created but I don't know if it's available.
 
Excellent Commentary
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Kudos to MiFID....

Have you heard any names as to who are the first ECN entrants ?

What is really interesting at this point....is the realization that the exchanges are just a set of commoditized grouped, and redundant computer banks....

And can be anywhere....particularly where fiber optic is handy....

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Look at what has happened to NYSE volume versus BATS....

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Furthermore....the government that offers the best legal and tax framework will attract the domicile of stock listers both young and old....and will be welcomed by the hedge fund community....a growing dominant market force ....

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What a beautiful thought ....a truly free based world wide center of dominance in a true world stock exchange....without the rediculous electronic name transfer costs....and other nonsense restrictions imposed by political hubris and idiocies....
 
Thanks.

From what I can gather there is an ECN called Chi-X (owned by instinet) that has been operating for about a year in some of the major markets and is starting to gain some decent market share (~10%). There are also a few other due to begin trading before year end (Turquoise / BATS).
 
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