I was wondering the other day whether we might run out

of space on the web site soon as more and more venues are

created. Well, the good news is that Xavier Rolet and Eli

Lederman may have helped us solve that problem (

href="http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?id=20564"

target="_blank">LSE in talks to buy

Turquoise).

Assuming that the

proposed acquisition does indeed go ahead, it will be interesting

to see how this will affect the trading landscape. What will

happen to the liquidity currently residing in Turquoise? Will the

LSE want to reinstate the original Liquidity Provision

agreements? How will Turquoise interact with Baikal, from both a

technology and a personnel perspective?

It's too early to tell just yet but it is

clear to see that the LSE is making sure it has plenty of new

pieces on the board, which has to be a good thing. Also, it will

help the LSE in its desire to align itself more closely with the

interests of its biggest customers as they are also Turquoise's

current owners. And, of course, it will give the LSE a European

shop front that it can open tomorrow. It did strike me, though,

that the LSE's approach can be contrasted with that of NYSE

Euronext, which Jeremy Grant and Michael Mackenzie wrote about in

FT Trading room on Tuesday (

href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2d62bcfa-ad26-11de-9caf-00144feabdc0.html"

target="_blank">NYSE Euronext bets on

'co-location' centres). In the

article, they describe how NYSE Euronext is investing huge sums

of money in co-location facilities both in London and New York.

This will be combined with its UTP network that ultimately aims

to provide a single point of access regardless of what you want

to trade, where or how.

Back at Fidessa Towers

we have been ringing the changes, too, with the launch of the

href="http://fragmentation.fidessa.com/fragulator"

target="_blank">Fragulator which allows you to see

the trading pattern of any stock over any time period across both

lit and dark venues. The clever chaps back at Fidessa Labs have

spent the summer working on this and you can see the results of

their efforts by

href="http://fragmentation.fidessa.com/fragulator"

target="_blank">clicking here or on the Fragulator

tab from the home page. Simply enter any European stock name (the

system will prompt you with suggestions as you type), hit the

"show report" button and hey presto!

You will

also see this icon href="http://fragmentation.fidessa.com/wp-content/uploads/fragulator-icon1.jpg"> class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-907"

title="fragulator-icon1"

src="http://fragmentation.fidessa.com/wp-content/uploads/fragulator-icon1.jpg"

alt="" width="45" height="40" /> next to any stock

that appears on the regular site. Clicking on this icon will

enable you to fragulate any stock.

The guys

have assured me that the interface is idiot proof (which is a bit

strange because they were very insistent that I spent a lot of

time testing it) but please let us have your feedback and

suggestions for what else you would like to see.

Try comparing the VWAPs or Average Trade Sizes between

the different types of execution venue - you might get a few

surprises. To change the granularity of the report simply hit the

"show more" or "show

less" buttons. If you want to extend the time period

(we currently have 12 months' worth of data) then log

in by entering your email address and a password of your choice.

Don't worry, it's still free and you will only have to

do this once.

As always my thanks go the guys

at Fidessa Labs for making it all possible.