Weekly Highlights

• Well they’re back again - Meme Stocks 2: Electric Boogaloo. In a 48-hour reminder of “this is why we can’t have nice things”, a small handful of low priced names with marginal fundamentals jumped to well over 30% of the total consolidated volume. Although that made 5/16 the second biggest trading day of the year by shares, it was only the 75th by notional traded.

• While execution conditions in the general market remained stable-to-slightly-better in terms of spreads and post-trade stability from last week, meme stocks were a different but isolated phenomena. There, volume patterns were distorted with heavier participation and larger trade sizes earlier in the day. Additionally, trades priced intra-spread but not at mid also increased. Earlier trading, intra-spread pricing, and a shift towards off exchange volumes are hallmarks of increased retail participation. But somewhat counterintuitively, the percent of trades in smid-caps that were odd lots actually decreased last week, even as they generally increased for large caps and ETFS, suggesting the low prices of meme stocks allow for more aggressive posturing by their enthusiasts.

• IntelligentCross saw some of this larger size trading - it was our second best week ever for shares of demi-block matching in smid-cap names, which helped drive smid-cap volumes on the platform to their highest for the year and second highest ever. But more importantly, it was also our best week of the year for hit rates against orders displayed on our free market data feed, IQX, and most shares traded against IOC order types. Combined with our market leading post-trade quote stability and lower markouts measured out to 500ms, IntelligentCross continues to provide a venue for performant liquidity for our subscribers.

• If you haven't yet leveraged our platform to boost your trading outcomes, we encourage 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.

• Weekly update will return the first week of June. Enjoy the Memorial Day holiday.