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The Who, What, When and Why of the Alternative Liquidity Venues

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the A-Team Alternative Trading Systems Directory. As with our sister publication – the A-Team Algorithmic Trading Directory – we have set out to describe and define a specific segment of the electronic trading marketplace, in the hopes of helping practitioners navigate the increasingly complex world of alternative liquidity venues.

Since we conceived the idea of a directory of alternative trading systems – that is, of electronic trading platforms that offer alternative liquidity venues from the world’s primary exchanges – the execution venue landscape has expanded significantly. This has been particularly true in Europe, where the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) has spawned a host of Multilateral Trading Facilities (MTFs) and encouraged the proliferation of both independent and broker-sponsored dark liquidity venues, or dark pools. In short, the ATS landscape has become more complex and confusing than ever.

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