Appital, the price discovery and liquidity sourcing technology vendor, has launched Appital Insights, which aims to provide an unprecedented level of liquidity access for asset managers that is not available through traditional electronic trading venues.
Appital Insights enables buyside institutions to evaluate the feasibility of executing larger Average Daily Volume (ADV) orders without the risk of information leakage or price erosion. The platform also allows traders and portfolio managers (PMs) to gain exposure to liquidity events in equities that meet their minimum ADV or pricing criteria.
The new offering builds upon the existing bookbuilding features available through the Appital Turquoise BookBuilder, which automates large volume executions on the regulated Turquoise MTF. Through its integration with a range of EMS platforms, including Flextrade, FactSet’s Portware, TS Imagine, Virtu Triton Valor and Bloomberg, Appital Insights takes things a step further by allowing buyside traders to receive automated feedback on how to intelligently source liquidity for the orders on their blotter. The system details around the likelihood of sourcing liquidity in any relevant stock, thereby unlocking deal opportunities for the buyside before any price formation or deal launch occurs. This is designed to give traders and PMs the assurance that they will find counterparties before initiating a bookbuild.
Speaking with TradingTech Insight, Appital’s CEO Mark Badyra explains how the process works. “At any point in time a trader might have, say, 20 orders on their blotter that they deem to be illiquid. Appital Insights will look at those orders together with data that we have from live orders from other firms, as well as passive interest from PMs and traders that also have ADV and pricing thresholds attached to them. Using that data pool, we can show that out of those 20 orders, maybe only three of them have the distribution capabilities relevant for Appital Bookbuilder. This means the trader can take a decision at that point in time. And when live orders go into Appital insights, there’s no matching, there’s no execution, so asset managers and traders can feel confident enough to expose a full order size, knowing that none of that information is leaking into the market. There are no market signals, so that fear is completely eradicated.”
He continues: “Importantly, when the order is executed through Appital Bookbuilder on Turquoise, it executes in one block. Which is very different to a matching venue workflow where the order goes in and sequentially executes over time, with every execution sending a signal to the market.”
Since its European launch in May 2023, Appital has seen deal flow opportunities worth $200 million on the platform, with an average opportunity size of 2.5 days ADV. The company has onboarded 25 asset management clients managing a combined $12 trillion in assets under management (AUM). An additional 40 asset management firms, jointly managing $28 trillion AUM, are currently being onboarded.
“We have all witnessed venue fragmentation and a decline in block liquidity,” says Matt Jefford, Appital’s Head of Liquidity Solutions. “However, true block liquidity still resides with the buyside. This is the unique liquidity we are unlocking with Appital Insights.”
The Appital platform actively monitors all information and discourages platform misuse by providing data to all users. This enables users to select the type of firms or liquidity they wish to interact with, thereby building trust within the community.
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