Liquidity in Times of Competition - Evidence from the European Stock Market

With the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in effect since November 2007, new trading venues have emerged in European equities trading, among them Chi-X. This paper analyzes the impact of this new market entrant on the home market as well as on consolidated liquidity of French blue chip equities, newly tradable on Chi-X. Our findings suggest that owing to this new competition the home market’s liquidity has enhanced. This is apparently due to the battle for order flow which results in narrower spreads and increased market depth. Given these results, overall liquidity in a consolidated order book is in the French case higher than without the new competitor