London loses 90% of EU share trading on first day

The three biggest trading venues in London that handle European shares saw almost all of this business move into the European Union on Monday, the first trading day since Brexit, according to Bloomberg.

Aquis Exchange plc CEO Alasdair Haynes told Bloomberg TV on Monday that 99.6% of its European stock trading moved to its parallel venue in Paris.

Cboe Europe saw 90% move to its Amsterdam venue, while 92% of such trades on London Stock Exchange Group’s Turquoise platforms were inside the EU by 3pm in London, Bloomberg said.

The moves represent about €4.6 billion of trades, according to data from Cboe Global Markets Inc.

Aquis CEO Haynes said: “Europe has clearly won the battle for its own share trading.”

Haynes said the shift “is a spectacular own goal as Britain is now losing its very strong position in trading of European equities in London.”

The Aquis CEO said he is pessimistic about the EU granting trading rights through the equivalence process.

“The talk of equivalence being granted in the next few months is in dreamland,” said Haynes. “It will take years if ever to get equivalence.”

Haynes added: “This horse has bolted so far it’s now in a different stable.

“To get it back you have to do something pretty revolutionary.”

While the Brexit trade deal agreed last month set rules for industries such as fishing and agriculture, it did not cover the UK’s much larger finance sector, meaning London’s automatic access to EU financial markets came to an end on December 31.

“All our systems are operating normally and, as expected, the majority of activity in EEA-symbols is now taking place on our Dutch venue, with activity across all our market segments,” said David Howson, president of Cboe Europe.