AX Trading announced today that it had conducted its first after hours cross on The AX Trading Network ("The AX"). According to Bloomberg trade advertising service, AX Trading crossed 210,000 shares of SPN (Superior Energy Services, Inc. $21.32 -0.42, -1.93%) at 4:20 p.m. yesterday August 28, 2012.
"The AX is all about giving the institutional investment community the ability to trade with whom they want to trade, at the prices they want to trade at and - as this trade demonstrates - at the time they want trade, whether the traditional market is open or not," said AX Trading CEO Kevin Callahan.
As AX Trading announced previously, The AX Trading Network recently expanded its trading hours and is currently open from 8am to 5pm Eastern Time.
The block trade in SPN was crossed at $21.32, which was the closing price of the stock. The 210,000 share print was, by far, the largest print of the day and actually the largest print in the stock for the entire month of August. The next largest third-market print on the day was 10,000 shares. The average size block trade on The AX is over 48,000 shares.
The AX Trading Network ("The AX") is the new Alternative Trading System (ATS) that allows traders to start their own auctions in any stock at any time. "Initiators" of AX auctions can also decide how much information to share about the auction and what counterparties to invite. AX is approved to trade all U.S. securities but does not trade pink sheet stocks.
The AX is one of the only trading venues where buyers and sellers can conduct block trades at the prices they want to trade at rather than simply being matched at the midpoint of a spread that may be narrow but also very thin, often as little as 100 shares a side.
Under the trade-through provision of Reg. NMS, if a trade takes place outside the NBBO, The AX is required to sweep all displayed liquidity that is priced better than the block price. Nearly one third of the block trades on The AX have taken place outside the NBBO. The trade-through provision does not apply to pre and post market hours. Also, because of the unreliability of market data in pre and post market hours, The AX only accepts strict limit orders during those times.
"The AX is designed to give the trader greater empowerment and control, putting the institutional trader back in the driver's seat," said Joe Costa, Director of Operations at AX Trading. "We believe the ability to trade outside of traditional trading hours is a very powerful draw for real buyers and sellers in the marketplace."
The AX Trading Network was launched in November 2011 and since then over 1,800 unique auctions have been "initiated" on The AX, representing over 170M shares of actionable liquidity.