Since the 1990’s, trading firms have increasingly made investments into ECNs, enjoying all the benefits they offer over traditional exchanges including greater speed and efficiency, lower costs, and fewer manual errors, which in turn has
resulted in a greater use of algorithmic trading2. In 1998, in order to restrict the monopoly enjoyed by NYSE and NASDAQ, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) passed the Regulation Alternative Trading Systems (Reg. ATS) resulting in the emergence of a number of alternative electronic trading platforms.