Weekly Highlights

• The notionally weighted average spread in large-cap names has widened significantly since the start of February. However, reminiscent of the distortion in overall volumes brought by single names such as BETS earlier in the year, this wider average spread is being driven by relatively few names: mostly SMCI, but also ARM, NVDA, PANW, and LLY. Together, they have increased the weighted average by around 20%.

• Execution in these high profile names has become more difficult. Median trade sizes and average quote durations have both declined, especially earlier in the day, and more trades have shifted to the dark and away from maker-taker venues. In addition, volumes traded at mid price and in the closing auctions have declined versus those done intraspread and in continuous trading, putting additional strain on trading costs.

• Nevertheless, IntelligentCross retains its performance and liquidity edge with lower markouts and higher post trade stability to 500ms than the exchange average in both our Midpoint and ASPEN Fee/Fee products. We are seeing over 500 million shares ordered daily on our platform with IOC hit rates just under 8%, putting us in a solid position to offer high performance liquidity in difficult, but dominantly trading names.

• If you haven't yet leveraged our platform to boost your trading outcomes, we urge you to connect with us. Our displayed ASPEN quotes are available through our market data feed, IQX, which can be accessed directly or via providers such as Exegy, MayStreet, Redline, and ACTIV.