Fixed income and derivatives electronic trading firm Tradeweb is expanding into the equities space with the launch of a block trading cash equity platform with Plato Partnership.
Known as eBlock, the platform allows traders to source and aggregate broker principle risk, offering the buy-side more control over execution, and the opportunity to match and negotiate orders on a regulated venue.
It also uses ‘blotter scraping’ technology to provide users with data to target organisations based on activity, execution rates and market impact.
Tradeweb’s chief executive, Lee Olesky, said that having already brought electronic request-for-quote (RFQ) platforms to the market in fixed income, derivatives and ETFs, the partnership with Plato marks a “significant milestone” for the firm.
“We are excited to extend this highly successful model to cash equities, and to work with Plato to develop new trading mechanisms to more efficiently execute block trades against principal liquidity on a regulated trading venue,” Olseky added.
“We are confident that our innovative and efficient approach to block trade equities execution will offer market participants flexibility of choice and access to robust, cost-effective liquidity.”
Tradeweb and Plato Partnership will work closely together to drive the development of the new platform, which is scheduled to go-live in the Q3 this year. The first phase of the launch will include RFQ capabilities for targeting broker principle risk liquidity, and it will be operated by Tradeweb on its multilateral facility (MTF).
“eBlock allows buy-side traders to tie the sourcing of risk liquidity into the execution process using intelligent data analytics, giving them the necessary information required to make good decisions about trade execution,” Mike Bellaro, Plato Partnership co-chair and global head of equity trading at Deutsche Asset Management, concluded.