Markit BOAT top for Europe equity reporting

By Daisy Ku

LONDON (Reuters) - Markit BOAT, a new equity trade reporting venture, beat Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange to be Europe's top equities reporting venue in May, a Thomson Reuters study showed on Wednesday.

Markit BOAT captured a 22 percent share of reporting for all European equity trading in May, including both on-exchange and over-the-counter, the Reuters European Equity Market Share Report showed, beating Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) with 16 percent and the London Stock Exchange (LSE.L) with 11 percent.

BOAT was launched last year as new European Commission trading rules -- the markets in financial instruments directive or MiFID -- aimed at boosting competition came into effect. It is run by financial information provider Markit and offers a cheaper data reporting service.

"Firms are increasingly exercising the choice MiFID gives to publish their trade away from primary exchanges," said Andrew Allwright, exchange traded instruments business manager at Thomson Reuters (TRIL.L) (TRI.TO) (TRIN.O) (TRI.N).

"This shows the challenge for people to access consolidated data because it means accessing the data from many more venues."

In a sign of fragmentation of European equity trading, the combined market share of the top three reporting venues dropped to 49.8 percent in May from 51.7 percent in November.

Both Deutsche Boerse and the LSE lost ground in reporting for the most liquid stocks in their home markets.

In May, the LSE captured about 58 percent for all FTSE 100 equities reporting, down from 61 percent in April and 68 percent in November.