Fragmentation

The proliferation of execution venues other than ‘primary’ exchanges means that for many of the most liquid securities, volume is no longer concentrated in a single location. For these stocks there has been a fragmentation of liquidity across the different venues. Fragmentation has implications for all parties involved in trading and makes best execution dependent on smart order routing tools and low latency trading systems. Without these tools traders cannot expect to consistently find the venue with the most advantageous price