Specialist
The Specialists show trading proposals, quotes, buy or sell side, on the financial instruments for which they have submitted a specific request. The Quotes are not anonymous trading proposals.
Trading Hours
For ETFs, ETCs/ETNs, and investment funds, the start and end times of the Continuous Trading Phase are defined for each financial instrument. The Continuous Trading Phase for each financial instrument can have a maximum duration of 8:00 am to 11:00 pm. The Pre-Trading Phase has a standard duration of 10 minutes, which precedes the activation of the Continuous Trading Phase for the same financial instrument.
The trading hours for each ETF or Fund are also published on the Market's website, on the descriptive page of each financial instrument, in the "Instrument Info" section, and under the "Start Trading Time" and "Stop Trading Time" headings, as in the following example, where the instrument trades from the opening at 8:10 pm to the closing at 9:55 pm:
Methods of trading and matching of trading proposals
The market model provides that the matching of proposals can take place, during the continuous trading phase, according to the following methods:
- the matching of Third-Party Account Orders with Third Party Account Orders
- the matching of Own Account Orders/Quote with Third Party Account Orders
is inhibited the combination of trading proposals on own account.
The market model is an "all to all" model, in which all trading proposals, whether they are odds or orders, are in competition with each other.
For ETFs, ETCs/ETNs, and Investment Funds, matching can occur, depending on the information provided for each instrument, using one of the following matching mechanisms:
1. "P-M-T Priority"
2. RFE (or "Request for Execution")
The trading method applied to each ETF or Fund is also published on the Market website, on the descriptive page of each financial instrument, in the "Instrument Info" section, and under the RFE and PMT headings, as in the following example, where the instrument trades with the RFE method and without P-M-T priority.
“P-M-T Priority”
When the "P-M-T Priority" mechanism is active, orders are matched based on the following priority criteria:
- Price;
- Member (defined as a possible association with a Liquidity Provider made by the Order Flow Provider);
- Time.
The PMT Priority therefore consists in the right for the Order Flow Provider to indicate a Priority Market Maker (Member), ensuring that, if any order placed by the Order Flow Provider can be combined with several trading proposals of the same price, the trading proposals entered by the chosen Market Maker are preferred in the first place.
This behavior occurs even if the Market Maker's proposals are entered with a lower time priority than the other proposals that can be combined.
When there are at least two different PDNs on the same price level, since the book is anonymous (a necessary measure for the orderly conduct of trades and the minimization of manipulative operations), it is not possible to know in advance which of these PDNs will be executed and/or executed first.
In all other cases of competition between several negotiation proposals, the matching model behaves on the basis of only 2 priority criteria: P (Best Price); T (Time to enter the proposal).
RFE (or "Request for Execution”)
If, at the level of a single financial instrument, the possibility for Specialists to use a Quote validation mechanism (the so-called "Request for Execution" or, more simply, "RFE") is active, the matching of orders can only occur if the Specialist's Quotes are present on the trading book and the matching model operates on the basis of only 2 priority criteria: P (Best Price); T (Time to enter the order).
With the RFE trading mode active on the financial instrument, the matching against a Quote can take place, on the basis of a specific choice made by the Specialist, according to the methods indicated below:
- Matching Order-Driven
Whenever the RFE facility is not active for a Quote, the contract resulting from the crossing between an Order and the bid or offer side of a Quote is immediately executed. Orders and Quotes are ordered in the order book and are executed according to a price-time priority criterion.
- Matching RFE-Driven
Whenever the RFE facility is active for a Quote, in order to allow the Specialist the possibility to validate his Quote, a RFE Phase opens in case a contract is about to be executed between an Order and the bid or offer side of a Quote