在談高頻交易之前,有一個特殊的名詞是必須先要介紹的。這個名詞是Dark Pool, 中文翻譯成"黑池"或是"暗盤"。
在美國,如果要買賣股票的話,他們除了紐約證券交易所(NYSE), Nasdaq這些交易所可以買賣股票之外,SEC還核準了許多的私人的交易平台,你可以把這些私人的交易平台想成是私人的證券交易所,這些私人證券交易所也可以進行股票的買賣。角色就跟NYSE, Nasdaq這些交易所是一樣的。
而且這些Dark Pool通常有一個特點,就是他們不會把客戶所掛的委託單資訊揭露出來,也就是我們是看不到上下五檔(order book)這個資訊的。那為什麼這些dark pool不要揭露order book這些資訊呢?這是因為有許多的大型投資法人(例如投信公司,退休基金,壽險公司等),他們不希望自己買賣股票的意圖被外界偵測到,如果他們委買或委賣的委託單是會被揭露出來的話,則一些投機客偵測到這些大型投資法人掛出大量的委託單,就會去推昇市場的買價,或是壓低市場的賣價進而獲利。(這個策略叫push the penny,後續會介紹)
也因為dark pool不揭露委買委賣資訊的這個特點,吸引了許多大型投資法人捨去在傳統NYSE, Nasdaq等交易所進行交易,反而改到這些dark pool裡來進行交易,也導致了NYSE等傳統交易所的成交量逐年下滑,而dark pool的成交量也從2003年的不到1%成長到目前的10%成交量。
下麵是wiki裡麵所列出來,對dark pool的說明,以及目前美國所有的dark pool清單,看的出來連花旗,巴克萊,高盛,美林,摩根,也都有經營自己的dark pool。
Dark pools of liquidity (also dark pools or dark liquidity) are financial trading venues or crossing networks similar to exchanges but that provide liquidity that is not displayed on order books. This is useful for traders who wish to move large numbers of shares without revealing themselves to the open market.
Dark liquidity pools offer institutional investors many of the efficiencies associated with trading on the exchanges' public limit order books but without showing their actions to others. Dark liquidity pools avoid this risk because neither the price nor the identity of the trading company is displayed.
Independent dark pools:
Instinet
SmartPool
Posit/MatchNow from Investment Technology Group (ITG)
Liquidnet
NYFIX Millennium
Pulse Trading BlockCross
RiverCross
Pipeline Trading Systems
Broker-dealer-owned dark pools
Barclays Capital - Liquidity Cross (LX)
BNP Paribas
BNY ConvergEx Group (an affiliate of Bank of New York Mellon)
Citi - Citi Match
Credit Suisse - CrossFinder
Fidelity Capital Markets
Goldman Sachs Execution and Clearing
Knight Capital Group - Knight Link, Knight Match
Deutsche Bank Global Markets
Merrill Lynch
Morgan Stanley
Nomura - Nomura NX
UBS Investment Bank
Ballista ATS Ballista Securities LLC[citation needed]
BlocSec[citation needed]
Bloomberg Tradebook (an affiliate of Bloomberg L.P.)
Consortium-owned dark pools
BIDS Trading - BIDS ATS
LeveL ATS
Exchange-owned dark pools
International Securities Exchange
NYSE Euronext
BATS Trading
Direct Edge
Other dark pools
Chi-X
Turquoise
(zt)