Euronext to stymie ‘flash boys’ with its block-trading platform

High-frequency traders like those in Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys face more challenges after Euronext unveiled a trading platform to help fund managers sell blocks of shares without tipping off the market.

Euronext, which is set to buy the London Stock Exchange’s French Clearnet platform, will launch the trading platform alongside US tech outfit Ax Trading to help minimise “information leakage and market impact” of block trades.

The new platform is designed to help fund managers negotiate the sale of large blocks of shares, traditionally more than 10,000, without revealing their intention to the wider market.

High-frequency trading hit the headlines after Lewis’s book showed how computer algorithms would profit by trading ahead of big share orders after detecting them in the market.

The platform is expected to launch this year.

The French-based exchanges operator, which runs the stock markets in Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, revealed a 4.3% slide in revenue for the year ending December 31 to €496.4 million (£420.9 million).

Operating profit rose to €258.8 million from €238.1 million last year after it cut costs by nearly 10%.