Toronto – February 27, 2009
Omega ATS is pleased to announce a new pricing schedule, effective March 9, 2009. For stocks trading at $1.00 or higher, the active side (liquidity remover) will be charged a fee of $0.0025 per share and the passive side (liquidity provider) will be paid a rebate of $0.0024 per share. Stocks under $1.00 will be traded free of charge (subject only to a 50-cent per trade processing charge on the active side). The pricing model is the most aggressive in Canada, both in terms of active fees and the spread earned by Omega ATS per transaction.
“The introduction of multiple marketplaces in Canada was meant to create an environment where competitive forces would drive more liquidity, more technological innovation and lower execution fees, to the benefit of all” says Mario Josipovic, President. “Over the past two months, there has been a groundswell of opposition to high execution fees – particularly in penny stocks. We deliberately built Omega on a low-cost base – it is now time to return that advantage to our dealer clients through extremely competitive pricing.”
Omega ATS is a fully protected visible marketplace in Canada regulated by IIROC. Launched in December 2007 with four active subscribers, Omega ATS has spent the past year building trading connections with service providers and growing its subscriber base.
“With thirty-nine current subscribers, we have built sufficient critical mass to be able to move forward with our aggressive pricing model where liquidity providers are encouraged to post more limit orders in response to Omega ATS becoming the preferred trading venue for active flow ” says Greg King, C.O.O. “The risk we run is that we will continue to be traded-through by dealers that have not yet connected to us – to the detriment of liquidity providers who will become disillusioned and revert to posting at higher-priced venues. We are willing to take that risk because we expect IIROC will do the right thing by enforcing the trade-through regime and we are confident that the unconnected dealers will act in their own, and their clients’, commercial best interests.”
“We applaud Omega ATS for taking this bold step and look forward to true competition between Canadian trading venues” says Spencer MacCosham, Managing Director and Chief Trading Officer at Raymond James Ltd.
About Omega ATS:
OMEGA ATS provides the Canadian marketplace with a fast, anonymous, strict price/time priority trading platform where customers can trade at the CBBO (Canadian Best Bid and Offer) at competitive rates.
