Thomson Reuters suspends trading tracker over accuracy issues

The European Market Share Reporter was suspended on Friday and a spokesman said the product was expected to be fully closed by Monday morning.

The system measures the market share of competing equity venues across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. It has a wide customer base and is often cited in journals, independent reports and by regulators.

It also tracks the share of trading taking place in “dark pools”, including those operated by exchanges, as well as broker-run venues.

Dark pools are private, off-exchange forums for trading securities that are not openly available to the public. Trades in them remain confidential and outside the purview of the general investing public. They are created to hide bids and offers from public markets.

Thomson Reuters said in a statement that the suspension was due to "issues with the data aggregation component feeding the EMSR product”. The issue began on 18 September and Thomson Reuters was first made aware of it on 6 October, a spokesman said.

The company said it expected to release a "new proprietary and equivalent capability" in the first quarter of 2015 and would communicate with its users in due course on the exact timeframe.

Thomson Reuters launched the system after new European Union regulations in 2007 allowed alternative trading venues to challenge incumbents. It helped to track the steady decline in the market share of traditional bourses, such as the London Stock Exchange, Euronext and Deutsche Börse, and the rise of rival venues. ■