Welcome to the February edition of Market Metrics That Matter, your monthly briefing on European cash equities trends.
Don’t forget to visit Cboe Europe’s Market Share page for leading insights into European equity trading activity.
February 2026 Highlights
European equity trading volumes reach all-time high, as on-exchange activity shifts towards Dark order books and Closing Auctions
- Total on-exchange average daily value traded (ADVT) in European equities hit a new all-time high of €69.1bn, up 23% year-over-year, surpassing the previous high of €68.6bn set in March 2020 at the start of the COVID pandemic
- Total addressable activity (including on and off-exchange), also set an all-time record of €96.3bn, up 25% on February 2025, topping the €94.3bn high from March 2020
- Market-wide activity shifted away from Lit order books towards Dark order books, Closing Auctions and Systematic Internalisers (SIs)
- Dark order books reached a record ADVT high of €7.8bn and their on-exchange market share increased to 11.3% (vs 9.8% in Jan 2026), helped by fewer suspensions under ESMA’s latest update to its Volume Cap Mechanism published in January (217 stocks vs 355 previously)
- Closing Auctions accounted for 24.5% of on-exchange activity, up from 23.3% in January. On February 27, MSCI rebalance day, they accounted for 46% of on-exchange trading
- SIs accounted for 17.8% of total addressable volumes, versus 17.1% in January
- Periodic auctions sustained their recent momentum, representing 11.3% of on-exchange activity – their fifth consecutive month above 11% – and achieving a record monthly ADVT of €7.8bn
- Madrid-listed securities recorded the strongest month-on-month increase in market share (+0.6 percentage points), while Frankfurt saw the largest decline (1.4 percentage points)
Cboe Europe posts record monthly ADVTs for total trading, Periodic Auctions, Cboe BIDS Europe and 3C
- Cboe Europe recorded an overall market share of 25.98%, up from 25.5% in January 2025, making it the largest pan-European stock exchange
- Cboe’s total monthly ADVT reached a record high of €18.0bn, beating the previous high of €17.4bn set in April 2025
- Cboe Periodic Auctions achieved a record monthly ADVT of €6.3bn, capturing an 80.5% market share of the periodic auctions segment
- Executions against Retail Liquidity Providers reached a record monthly ADVT of €59.0m, including a record daily high of €86.7m on 4 February
- Cboe BIDS Europe, Cboe’s European block trading platform, remained the largest of its kind for the 47th consecutive month, posting a record monthly ADVT of €969.0m and a single day record of €1.56bn on 13 February
- Cboe Closing Cross (3C), our post-close trading service, achieved a record monthly ADVT of €354m, giving it a closing auction market share of 2.09%, a record high
Chart of the Month
Total On-Exchange ADVT in European Equities (2009-Present)
Source: Cboe Europe Market share data
