Wall Street Enters Darker Age With Most Stock Trading Now Hidden
华尔街进入更黑暗的时代，大多数股票交易现在已被隐藏

Here’s a surprising new fact about the world’s largest and most-liquid public equity market: Most of the activity on it isn’t public anymore.
关于全球最大和流动性最强的公共股市，这里有一个令人惊讶的新事实：它上面的活动大多数已经不再是公开的。

For the first time on record, the majority of all trading in US stocks is now consistently occurring outside the country’s exchanges, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
根据彭博社汇编的数据，首次记录显示，美国股票的大部分交易现在持续发生在该国交易所之外。

This off-exchange activity — which happens internally at major firms or in alternative platforms known as dark pools — is on course to account for a record 51.8% of traded volume in January. Barring an unexpected dip, it will be the fifth monthly record in a row, and the third month running that hidden trades make up more than half of all volume.
这种场外交易——在主要公司内部或在被称为暗池的替代平台上进行——预计将在一月份占到创纪录的 51.8%的交易量。除非出现意外下滑，否则这将是连续第五个月创下记录，也是隐藏交易连续第三个月占据所有交易量的一半以上。

In other words, the shift “appears to be developing into a longer-term trend and quite possibly a permanent one at that,” Anna Ziotis Kurzrok, head of market structure at Jefferies, wrote in a note to clients this month.
换句话说，这一变化“似乎正在发展成为一种长期趋势，并很可能是一个永久性的趋势，”杰富瑞市场结构负责人安娜·齐奥蒂斯·库尔兹罗克在本月给客户的报告中写道。

Off-exchange trading has been a growing feature on Wall Street for years, but until now public venues including the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq have retained overall dominance of market activity. That’s important because exchanges display the quotes that most participants use to price stocks.
场外交易在华尔街已经成为一个日益增长的特征，但直到现在，包括纽约证券交易所和纳斯达克在内的公共场所仍然主导着市场活动。这一点很重要，因为交易所展示了大多数参与者用来定价股票的报价。

The shift toward off-exchange trading is the culmination of a years-long trend, which if it continues could eventually have implications for how the market functions, according to Larry Tabb, head of market structure at Bloomberg Intelligence.
向场外交易的转变是多年趋势的顶峰，如果这种趋势持续下去，可能最终会对市场运作方式产生影响，彭博情报市场结构负责人拉里·塔布表示。

“Theoretically the more trading that goes off-exchange, the fewer orders there are on-exchange competing to determine the best price,” he said. “This means the pricing on and off-exchange could get worse.”
“理论上，越多的交易在场外进行，场内竞争确定最佳价格的订单就越少，”他说。“这意味着场内和场外的定价可能会变得更糟。”

The Securities and Exchange Commission has in recent years taken steps to try to push more activity back on-exchange by revamping market structure. Of four proposals made by the SEC, only two rules — that tweak the way stocks get priced and trades are executed on and off-exchange — were ultimately passed.
证券交易委员会近年来采取了一些措施，试图通过重塑市场结构将更多活动推回交易所。在 SEC 提出的四项提案中，最终只有两项规则获得通过——这些规则调整了股票定价和交易在交易所内外的执行方式。

Read more: Wall Street Stock Trading Set for Overhaul in New SEC Plan
阅读更多：华尔街股票交易在新的 SEC 计划中准备进行改革

For now the threat to market efficiency remains a distant concern, with 48.2% of trades in January still happening on-exchange. Instead, the change is perhaps more useful as an indicator of the evolving market landscape.
目前，市场效率的威胁仍然是一个遥远的担忧，1 月份仍有 48.2%的交易在交易所进行。相反，这一变化或许更有助于指示不断演变的市场格局。

Kurzrok at Jefferies notes that the surge in off-exchange activity corresponds with increased volumes in stocks worth less than $1, which are typically traded by retail investors. That makes sense, since that business is often handled internally by market-making giants like Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial.
杰富瑞的库尔兹罗克指出，场外交易活动的激增与价值低于 1 美元的股票交易量的增加相对应，这些股票通常由散户投资者交易。这是有道理的，因为这类业务通常由市场做市巨头如 Citadel Securities 和 Virtu Financial 内部处理。

When those sub-dollar stocks are stripped out of the data, off-exchange trading remains below 40% of total volume, according to calculations by Jefferies. So the apparent shift away from exchanges “doesn’t necessarily mean trading in one stock or all stocks is going to be worse off on any particular day,” Kurzrok said.
根据杰富瑞的计算，当这些低于一美元的股票被剔除出数据时，场外交易仍然低于总交易量的 40%。因此，库尔兹罗克表示，明显的交易转向场外“并不一定意味着在任何特定日子里，某只股票或所有股票的交易状况会变得更糟。”

Meanwhile, the number of off-exchange venues that offer an alternative, anonymous way to process trades has been growing.
与此同时，提供替代性、匿名方式处理交易的场外交易场所数量正在增加。

These alternative-trading systems, or ATS, use different mechanisms to match buyers and sellers without the desired price being displayed on a public exchange, or automated auctions where parties express the value they are willing to buy or sell stocks for. Using those venues helps institutional investors limit information leaking to the market and adversely affecting prices.
这些替代交易系统，或称 ATS，使用不同的机制来匹配买家和卖家，而不在公共交易所上显示所需的价格，或在自动拍卖中，参与方表达他们愿意买入或卖出股票的价值。使用这些场所有助于机构投资者限制信息泄露到市场，从而对价格产生不利影响。

About 1.7 billion shares a day changed hands on an ATS in November, the most since March of 2020 and 36% more than a year prior, according to analysis from Bloomberg Intelligence.
根据彭博情报的分析，11 月份在 ATS 上交易的股票数量约为 17 亿股，是自 2020 年 3 月以来的最高水平，比一年前增加了 36%。

“This new style of trading is different,” said Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading. “The bigger institutions seem to have a better experience where they can command more value.”
“这种新的交易风格是不同的，”Themis Trading 的乔·萨卢兹说。“大型机构似乎有更好的体验，他们能够掌控更多的价值。”