Euronext announced on Monday the launch of a new service aimed at strengthening its offering around opening and closing auction processes for equity markets—two strategic moments in the trading day that are attracting increasing liquidity and volumes, and which are in high demand from its clients.
In a statement released in the morning, the operator at the helm of Europe's leading capital markets infrastructure highlighted that it currently runs the continent's largest auction mechanism, with auctions now accounting for more than 25% of total activity on its equity markets.
However, Euronext also pointed out that the average daily imbalance recorded during auctions last year represented an untapped liquidity pool of EUR200 million, or about 6% of total volumes traded during auction processes. According to Euronext, this illustrates the scale of the existing opportunity.
The new feature, called "Auction Volume Discovery," is designed to allow investors to take advantage of this imbalance by placing non-displayed orders throughout the day, without influencing the opening or closing price formation process, before these orders are matched against residual buy and sell orders at the very end of the session.
AVD orders will then be executed among themselves, providing block-sized execution opportunities, while orders that do not find a counterparty will expire at the end of the auction process.
"The launch of the 'Auction Volume Discovery' optionality for cash equity markets marks an important step in our Innovate for Growth 2027 strategic plan," said Nicolas Rivard, Head of Equities and Data Services at Euronext.
"This initiative demonstrates our commitment to offering more trading opportunities to our clients while improving liquidity in European markets," he added.
Above all, the aim is to offer market participants a discreet way to send large orders without impacting the market, as auction processes become an increasingly strategic battleground—as illustrated by a similar solution launched two years ago by Switzerland's SIX, as well as comparable initiatives underway at Deutsche Borse and LSE, not to mention growing competition from OTC platforms.
