Bloomberg Boasts of Partnership With ITG

Bloomberg used this year’s SIA show to talk up its recent deal with ITG, in which the two agreed to create a so-called SuperECN that will link Bloomberg’s

Bloomberg used this year’s SIA show to talk up its recent deal with ITG, in which the two agreed to create a so-called SuperECN that will link Bloomberg’s Tradebook with ITG’s flagship Posit system.

Under that agreement, Bloomberg and ITG will provide the technology for the new electronic communications network and will serve as the founding partners of the entity. The launch date of the SuperECN remains unclear, but it is certain that the system will only be open to partners that contribute capital and–more importantly–order flow to the system.

Whereas Tradebook is a real-time equity matching system that generates almost all of its volume via Nasdaq stocks, Posit is a non-continuous crossing network that does the majority of its business in listed shares.

By interfacing Tradebook with Posit–which crosses equity orders at the mid-point of the bid/ask spread seven times a day–Bloomberg and ITG are hoping to create a unique trading system that may some day challenge Reuters’ Instinet as the top institutional ECN.

The SuperECN joint venture is an exclusive agreement that stipulates that Posit cannot build a direct electronic link to any other ECN–or any other trading system, for that matter. While it is uncertain when the Tradebook/Posit interface will be completed, the deal could potentially provide clients of both ITG and Bloomberg with access to a very large pool of liquidity.