What can we infer from Nomura's move to register its NX dark pool as a multilateral trading facility in Europe? Well, perhaps the market isn't as moribund as the sad fate of Turquoise would suggest. Perhaps the inevitable wave of consolidation people have been talking about will not be as harsh as expected.

Nomura certainly thinks it has a niche to exploit. The Financial Times notes it will be the first bank-owned "dark pool" in Europe "to reveal publicly what trades have been done in an attempt to ‘remove the mystery' from such increasingly controversial trading facilities," which is a nice way to put it. The firm is no doubt aware that putting its trades out on tape is in tune with the times from a regulatory perspective. But Nomura is also betting that making the unit more than an internalized pool of trading will pay off financially.

It seems very confident that it can draw volume. One executive tells Advanced Trading that new functionality will include "the well formed market checks that make sure we are referencing a valid price on displayed exchanges and we're also incorporating some new anti-gaming controls. We have various levels of controls in our pool designed to build confidence in the participants."

For more:
- here's the Financial Times article
- here's the Advanced Trading article

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