Retail brokers will trade for free on Cboe Europe

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July 8, 2025

Secondary trading venue Cboe Europe is seeking to offer US-style price improvement without payment for order flow to European retail brokers.

From September 2025, Cboe Europe will start competing with Euronext’s Best of Book and Equiduct Apex with the launch of free trading for retail at or better than the European Best Bid and Offer (EBBO) and associated retail liquidity program (RLP).
It will offer retail brokers commission-free trading at or better than the European Best Bid and Offer (EBBO) as derived from its own lit market best bid and offers as well as those of Turquoise and the corresponding listing exchange.. Under the program, all retail orders will be executed at the top available bid or offer across European trading venues, aiming to ensure best execution for users.

The new service places Cboe Europe in competition with established retail‑focused solutions, Euronext’s Best of Book and Equiduct’s Apex. Euronext’s Best of Book, operating within its central limit order book (CLOB), aims to deliver delivers best execution; And Euronext says it did so 99.26% of the time, and generated €80 million in cumulative savings for retail investors in 2024 as well as provided an average price improvement of €2.61 per trade in.
Equiduct’s Apex, launched in late 2019, offers fee-free trading at the volume‑weighted best bid and offer (VBBO).

The new Cboe offering comes as the payment for order flow ban comes into effect in Germany – it is already the case elsewhere in Europe – early 2026. Prominent voices amongst market participants, of which Optiver have voiced their concerns about single market maker models.
Optiver said: “Ahead of upcoming MiFID rules that ban PFOF, some firms are introducing new structures that directly link single market-maker venues with affiliated brokers. These structures offer even less competition for retail order flow than their predecessors.”

Cboe Europe underscored that its program dispenses with both trading commissions and reliance on PFOF mechanisms. It promises execution at EBBO or better without fees with retail liquidity providers (RLPs) interacting with retail flow preferentially if they are quoting at better prices than the EBBO.
Cboe told Global Trading the pricing related to this program was not yet public but that the associated trades would be specifically flagged for post trade transparency and processing.

In June, Cboe Europe’s lit market volumes were on par with those of Euronext at €100 billion, it printed the vast majority of off book on exchange trades at €358 billion, versus €378 billion across all venues, making it the undisputed leader of bilateral trade reporting.

UBS snaps up Warburg researcher

By

Lucy Carter

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July 8, 2025

UBS has named Jan Bauer associate director of institutional equity sales, based in Frankfurt.

Bauer has spent the past six years at Warburg Research in equity research, initially as an analyst before becoming an associate and associate director. In his latest role, he was responsible for German renewable stocks, transaction-related research and deal marketing.

UBS reported US$2.5 billion in global markets revenues in the first three months of 2025, marking a 32% increase year-on-year. The majority (72%) of this was generated by equities, which generated a reported US$1.8 billion.

Elsewhere, in Dubai, UBS has appointed Omar Darwish as executive director and sales trader on the MENA global markets execution team.

Darwish has more than 15 years of industry experience and joins UBS from GTN, where he has been an equity sales trader since January 2024. He held the same role at Arqaam Capital from 2020.

Knee leaves M&G, joins Ninety One

By

Lucy Carter

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July 8, 2025

David Knee, head of multi-asset, Ninety One

David Knee has been named head of multi-asset at Ninety One, leaving M&G Capital Markets after 16 years.

Based in South Africa, he will take on the role before the end of the year.

On Knee’s appointment, co-chief investment officer Domenico Ferrini commented, “in addition to his co-portfolio manager responsibilities, he will focus on fostering even greater collaboration across teams and strengthening the macro research process that underpins our strategies.”

Ninety One held £130.8 billion in assets under management as of 31 March, up 4% year-on-year.

In his new role, Knee will be working with head of trading Cathy Gibson, who spoke with Global Trading about outsourced trading earlier this year.

Knee has more than 30 years of industry experience and has been co-deputy chief investment officer for fixed income at M&G since January 2024. Prior to this, he was head of fixed income and then chief investment officer in the company’s Southern Africa division.

The firm has also promoted Rehana Khan from deputy to co-head of South Africa equity and multi-asset, a role she shares with Hannes van den Berg. Khan has been with Ninety One since 2020, initially as a portfolio manager. Prior to this, she was a portfolio manager and equity analyst working alongside Knee at M&G.

Ex-Janus Henderson analyst imprisoned

By

Lucy Carter

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July 7, 2025

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Former Janus Henderson research analyst Redinel Korfuzi has been sentenced with six years imprisonment following a conviction of insider dealing and money laundering.

In his role as an analyst, Korfuzi had access to email communications from companies gauging investor interest in capital raising or sharing plans to sell large blocks of shares. He used this information to trade shares across these companies across a number of accounts, alongside his sister Oerta Korfuzi.

More than £960,000 was generated in this way, derived from 13 stocks traded between 17 December 2019 and 25 March 2021.

Commenting on the result, a Janus Henderson spokesperson stated that no other parties were involved in Korfuzi’s criminal practices. “We are pleased that the proceedings related to this legacy matter have now concluded. Neither Janus Henderson, nor any other past or current employee of the firm, was the subject of the proceedings or accused of any wrongdoing.”

The siblings have also been convicted of international money laundering, which was discovered during 2021 investigations into the insider dealing case.

The maximum sentence for insider dealing is seven years imprisonment. For money laundering, this rises to 14 years.

Companies race to Hong Kong for IPOs

By

Lucy Carter

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July 7, 2025

Hong Kong has surged ahead as the IPO currency denomination of choice, going from US$623 million in April to US$7.4 billion in May and US$5.6 billion in June – more than double the US$2.5 billion issued in USD.

Year-to-date (YTD), a total US$15.2 billion has been issued on the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX), compared with US$28 billion across US exchanges.

Spiking the figures in May were a USD$5.3 billion IPO from Chinese battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co and a US$1.5 billion IPO from Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceutical, also a Chinese firm. In June, this was bolstered by a US$1.3 billion IPO by Chinese seasonings manufacturer Foshan Haitian Flavouring & Food Co.

The Chinese yuan lost further influence following April’s Liberation Day tariff announcements, with no CNY-denominated issuances made in May or June. Over the last 12 months, CNY has taken 4% of the IPO market. Since January, this has dropped to 3%.

A US$2.9 billion issuance by JX Nippon Mining & Metals Corp in Japanese yen in February pushed the currency to take a third of the IPO market over the month, with US$3.1 billion of the US$9.1 billion total, but there has been little JPY activity since.

The Indian rupee, which was the headline IPO issuance currency in 2024, has fallen out of the race in the first six months of 2025. Aside from a brief boost in May, the INR’s influence has been minimal – taking just 4% of the market year-to-date with US$2.9 billion.

Middle Eastern issuances in Saudi Riyal (SAR), United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED) and Omani Rial (OMR) since January clock in at US$3.1 billion – 5% of the global total, and far behind the region’s total 2024 performance of US$12 billion.

The UK’s attempts to revive its IPO market, with changes to listing rules made last summer, do not appear to have had the intended impact. Aside from its contribution to the September 2024 global issuance boom, the currency has remained just a sliver of the global market – 0.8% (US$1.14 billion) of the US$147.7 billion globally since last July.

By contrast, the euro has slowly increased its market share since April, going from US$112.4 million to US$437.4 million and US$1.7 billion in each month to June and taking 13% of the market.

Secondary offerings continue to be dominated by the US dollar, which maintained its hold over the market by a considerable margin. In May, which saw the highest global issuance of the past 11 months, 71% of the US$85.2 billion issued was USD-denominated (US$60.5 billion).

GBP’s strongest month YTD in the secondary market has been January, where US$5 billion was issued – about 20% of the global total. Since January, US$13.9 billion in GBP-denominated issuances have represented just under 5% of the totalUS$307 billion secondary market.

This Week from Trader TV: Charles-Henry Monchau, Syz Group

By

GlobalTrading

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July 7, 2025

Markets eye tariff deadline, and liquidity shifts for H2.

Global markets will be heavily driven by three major forces this week, says Syz Group’s Charles-Henry Monchau—the US’s tax and spending bill, the looming tariff deadline on July 9, and any signals that could shift the needle on interest rate cuts or liquidity conditions in the second half of 2025. The chief investment officer shares his views on how these macro events could impact market activity and liquidity across equities, bonds, and foreign exchange.

[This post was first published on Trader TV]

The FCA accelerates wholesale market reviews promises

By

Etienne Mercuriali

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July 4, 2025

FCA logo

The Financial Conduct Authority’s new consultation starts the delivery of two structural reforms for equities: it proposes allowing Multilateral Trading Facilities (MTFs) to deal as principal on their own order books, chiefly letting them cross blocks within a unique legal entity and asks for feedback on widening the reference-price waiver.

The FCA says: “In this consultation we propose three main changes… removing the prohibition on an investment firm to execute clients’ trades on the MTF they operate on a matched principal trading basis… [and] permitting trading venues operating under the reference price waiver to use a broader set of prices than just the primary market” .

Under the current Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II) derivation, an MTF operator may not interpose itself between two clients on its own venue. The FCA concedes that the ban “resulted in additional costs for the operators’ group entity and their clients” and that lifting it “will reduce complexity and… deliver greater simplicity in the execution of trades”. The FCA therefore proposes to abolish the rule in order to let venues compete with Systematic Internalisers (Sis) when crossing blocks.

The FCA says: “This will enable more firms to offer competitive execution services without the need for contrived legal structures, thereby fostering innovation and reducing costs for end users”

On transparency waivers, the FCA writes: “We therefore propose to allow trading venues to source their reference price from a wider set of trading venues, including those not currently qualifying, and to combine prices from multiple venues”.
It also asks whether the waiver should move from a system-level to an order-level basis so that “mid-price, dark orders” can rest inside a lit book. The stated aim is to give venues “similar latitude” to dealers that reference their own SI quotes, improving competition without undermining price formation.

A FIX EMEA poll conducted in April saw market participants vote that the growth of bilateral trading is their top worry, prompting the FCA to “pledge caution” in any future equity reforms.
Read more: FCA pledges caution as industry voices concern over rise of bilateral trading.

The equity discussion paper focuses on market structure. It flags a structural shift. The FCA says: “An increasingly significant role for negotiated bilateral trading and a sustained decline in the share of trades executed on central limit order books (CLOBs)” is raising doubts about “whether fragmentation could impact the effectiveness and attractiveness of United Kingdom equity markets.”
CLOBs, the FCA notes, have long underpinned transparent price discovery, yet their share of addressable volume has fallen from 47 per cent in 2018 to 29 per cent in May 2025, prompting some of the FCA’s market contacts to warn that the trend “may be affecting, or could in future affect, the visibility of addressable liquidity and the resilience of price formation.”
On that basis the regulator asks whether the shrinking CLOB footprint is already distorting price signals and what steps might reinforce the order-book model’s role in setting public benchmarks.

The Financial Conduct Authority is clearly aware of the current debate around measuring accessible liquidity. “‘Addressable liquidity’ is not defined in regulation but is commonly used in the market to mean liquidity that participants could interact with,” the FCA says, before warning that studies which count only on-venue trades “could distort perceptions of the United Kingdom’s market depth and attractiveness” now that a growing share of flow is executed bilaterally. The FCA “invite[s] participants’ feedback on whether the reporting or the dissemination of trade data is limiting the ability of firms or issuing companies to fully understand the liquidity in the market” and, asks whether new compulsory trade-report flags or stricter use of existing ones are needed to isolate truly price-forming bilateral activity.
Read more: Aquis study prompts calls for standardised FIX flags .

Comments must be sent to the FCA by 10 September 2025; the FCA plans to “finalise the changes… in a policy statement in Q4 2025”. An exhaustive equity-transparency consultation remains scheduled for 2026. According to the FCA’s website notice, these reforms are intended to “support competition, reduce unnecessary complexity and improve market resilience”.

Barclays signals focus on digital execution with Goldman hire

By

Lucy Carter

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July 4, 2025

Anne Marie Darling, co-chief operating officer and Barclays Execution Services (BX) co-chief executive officer, Barclays

The bank has appointed Anne Marie Darling, who ran Goldman Sachs’ Marquee trading analytics platform for institutional clients, as co-chief operating officer and Barclays Execution Services (BX) co-chief executive officer alongside Craig Bright.

The pair are based in London, and take on the role following a two-month transition process. They replace Alistair Currie, who has been group chief operating officer since 2023 and with Barclays since 2017.

BX is Barclays’ service provision unit for the company’s UK and international operations, with a focus on increasing efficiency and scaling the business. It has previously been involved in developing electronic trading capabilities within the equities division.

In the first three months of 2025, equity trading revenues were up 59% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) and just 9% year-on-year (YoY) to €1.1 billion at the bank. A further €2 billion was reported in fixed income trading, making for a more drastic 82% QoQ and 21% YoY increase.

The bulk of Darling’s more than 30-year career has been spent at Goldman Sachs. She was most recently a partner at the firm, before which she was managing director and vice president.

Bright has been promoted from chief information officer, a role he has held since 2020. Prior to this, he was group chief information officer for Westpac bank in Australia and spent seven years at Citi in New York, first as managing director of global consumer infrastructure and head of North America before becoming chief technology officer for global consumer banking in 2016. He has more than three decades of industry experience.

Venkatakrishnan noted, “Craig and Anne Marie each have a vast and rich professional experience and complement each other well. We will benefit from their collaborative leadership.”

Via LinkedIn, Currie commented, “They will be outstanding in their new roles and will continue to drive new capabilities across the bank – underpinning customer experience, productivity, resilience, operating control, digital, data and AI capabilities and much more.”

Jane Street banned from India operations

By

Lucy Carter

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July 4, 2025

Jane Street made INR 48.4billion (US$556.7 million) in illegal gains as a result of index manipulation, according to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Pending further investigation, SEBI is impounding Jane Street’s (JS Group) alleged unlawful gains, requiring the company to deposit the funds in an escrow account at the Scheduled Commercial Bank in India. Any open positions in exchange traded derivatives contracts must be closed within three months or at expiry.

Its interim order states, “entities are restrained from accessing the securities market and are further prohibited from buying, selling or otherwise dealing in securities, directly or indirectly. If the Entities have any open position(s) in any exchange traded derivative contracts, as on the date of this Interim order, they can close out/square off such open positions within 3 months from the date of order or at the expiry of such contracts, whichever is earlier.”

The group has disregarded a caution letter issued by the National Stock Exchange in February, advising against taking large cash-equivalent positions and using certain trading patterns, and continues to run very large cash-equivalent positions in index options, SEBI has said in an interim order.

In December 2024, SEBI stated that it identified abnormally high or low volatility on weekly index options expiry days and that certain entities were running large cash-equivalent risks, particularly on expiry days. This followed an April investigation into Jane Street’s reported unauthorised use of proprietary trading strategies in Indian options markets.

Of the 18 trading days analysed as part of the investigation, SEBI notes that JS Group’s operations had evidence of an intraday index manipulation strategy. On the remaining three days, evidence of extending the market close was reported.

In one such case, on 17 January 2024, actions from the group pushed up BANKNIFTY index prices and it subsequently built large short positions. These were then reversed and sold, pushing down the index and producing larger options positions and profits that offset and intraday cash and futures trading losses.

JS Group’s strategy of taking very large trading market share facilitates this price-moving.

SEBI comments, “dealing in multiple segments across cash equities, stock futures, index futures, and index options simultaneously is certainly not by itself a breach of any regulation.

“However, what sets apart the trading pattern of the JS Group as described above as prima facie being manipulative, is the intensity and sheer scale of their intervention in the underlying component stock and futures markets, the rapid reversal of these large and aggressive trading in cash and futures without any plausible economic rationale, other than the concurrent activity in and impact on their positions in the BANKNIFTY index options markets.

“JS Group was exploiting its size and sheer volume to move the underlying BANKNIFTY index level, so as to benefit from its much larger actions or positions in the BANKNIFTY index options segment.”

JS Group told SEBI on 30 August 2024 that the trades were executed to remove unwanted delta or manage overall delta, statements which the regulator calls “bland”.

JS Group has previously been involved in a lawsuit surrounding its Indian options strategy, suing Millennium Management and two of its former employees, Doug Schadewald and Daniel Spottiswood, who jumped ship to the competitor in 2024. The group alleged that the traders had taken the strategy with them – a strategy that produced US$1 billion in profits in 2023.

A Jane Street spokesperson commented, “Jane Street disputes the findings of the SEBI Interim Order and will further engage with the regulator. Jane Street is committed to operating in compliance with all regulations in the regions we operate around the world.”

Barclays reorganises APAC IB

By

Lucy Carter

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July 4, 2025

Avinash Thakur, APAC head of investment banking, Barclays

Barclays has reorganised its APAC investment banking business after naming Avinash Thakur as head of the division.

Thakur had been managing director and head of capital markets financing for the region since 2014.

On the slew of promotions, he commented, “Asia Pacific is crucial to our global growth plan, and this team will drive the next phase of our ambition with clarity, deeper client relationships, and stronger collaboration across markets through focussed execution.”

Richard Satchwell has been promoted to APAC head of capital markets financing, after four years as CEO and head of investment banking for Australia. Relocating to Singapore, he will lead debt and equity financing.

Duncan Connellan will take on the Australian head of investment banking role, while David Henderson has been named CEO of the Australian business.

In India, Arun Saigal’s role as head of financing and M&A has expanded to lead investment banking. Pramod Kumar, CEO of Barclays India, is additionally taking on the role as APAC vice chairman of investment banking.

Ee-Ching Tay, head of investment banking for Southeast Asia, is now also APAC head of M&A.

Year-to-date 2025, Barclays ranks fifth in APAC ex-Japan M&A revenues with US$58 million and a 5.3% market share. The bank has moved up seven places in Dealogic’s rankings compared to this time last year. By volumes, however, Barclays did not break into the top ten.

In the IPO market Japan ranked fourth globally between May 2024 and April 2025, with US$9 billion issued in JPY.

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Secondary trading venue Cboe Europe is seeking to offer US-style price improvement without payment for order flow to European retail brokers.

UBS has named Jan Bauer associate director of institutional equity sales, based in Frankfurt.

David Knee has been named head of multi-asset at Ninety One, leaving M&G Capital Markets after 16 years.

Former Janus Henderson research analyst Redinel Korfuzi has been sentenced with six years imprisonment following a conviction of insider dealing and money laundering.

Hong Kong has surged ahead as the IPO currency denomination of choice, going from US$623 million in April to US$7.4 billion in May and US$5.6 billion in June – more than double the US$2.5 billion issued in USD.

Markets eye tariff deadline, and liquidity shifts for H2.

The bank has appointed Anne Marie Darling, who ran Goldman Sachs’ Marquee trading analytics platform for institutional clients, as co-chief operating officer and Barclays Execution Services (BX) co-chief executive officer alongside Craig Bright.

Jane Street made INR 48.4billion (US$556.7 million) in illegal gains as a result of index manipulation, according to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Barclays has reorganised its APAC investment banking business after naming Avinash Thakur as head of the division.

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