The landscape for equity trading in Europe has been going through a period of considerable change over the past few years since the introduction of the EU’s Markets in Financial instruments Regulation (MiFIR) and Second Directive (MiFID II) in 2018, and since the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

When considering the European equity trading and liquidity landscape, policymakers and market practitioners may have different questions depending on their perspectives of interest. For example, what trading mechanisms are used? Under what rules are the trades executed? How is the trade execution price determined? Where is the liquidity located? These questions require different cuts of the data on reported transactions.

This report, commissioned by the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME), applies three cumulative filters to the full universe of reported equity transactions to distinguish economic trading activity from the reporting of technical transactions, such as collateral transfers, give-ups and give-ins, and inter-affiliate trades undertaken for operational purposes. Furthermore, we break down the transactions by type of trading mechanism and type and jurisdiction of the provider of the trade execution service, thereby enabling the reader to choose the dimension that is of interest to them.