Electronic Trading Newsflashes

Instinet Group reports $19 million in first quarter profits.

On the back of stronger equity markets, Instinet Group turned a profit, reporting net income of $19 million for the first quarter of 2004, as compared to a net loss of $34 million for the first quarter of 2003, and a net loss of $38 million for the fourth quarter of 2003.

Total revenues for Instinet Group, net of expenses, were $313 million for the 2004 first quarter, an increase of 21 percent form the first quarter of 2003 and up 11 percent from the fourth quarter of 2003.

"We had a good first quarter driven by robust global markets," states Edward Nicoll, chief executive officer of Instinet Group in a press release. Instinet Group is comprised of two separate businesses: Instinet, the institutional broker and INET, the electronic marketplace, which consolidated the trading volumes of Instinet and Island.

Revenues of Instinet were $199 million for the first quarter of 2004, up seven percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2003, primarily due to higher transaction in U.S. equity securities as well as non-U.S. equities reflecting stronger global market volumes, the company says.

INET reported net income before income taxes of $6 million for the first quarter of 2004, up $1 million or 24 percent from the fourth quarter of 2003. INET's total market share in Nasdaq-listed equity trading rose to 25 percent from 23.6 percent the previous quarter.

In other news, Instinet is currently developing a U.S. securities intra-day crossing services (IDX) for the automatic matching of orders at a specified price, which it expects to launch in the second quarter.

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