The Dark Pools Of Wall Street

Liquidity isn't a problem for the institutions. Neither is tipping off the market to your intentions when you can trade millions of shares per day without the general public knowing.

Here's a slightly aged but still relevant breakdown of the major Dark Pools that currently exist (Courtesy of Advanced Trading).

As noted in this article (also from Advanced Trading): "...from September 2008 through April 2009...the percentage of trading conducted with these non-traditional liquidity pools has grown steadily from 15% to 24%...Conversely, the market share of the single largest trading venue -- NASDAQ -- fell from 30% to 20% over the same time period."

An apparent strong shift to an essentially non-transparent market for millions of shares to be traded. Are these shares trading at open market prices? What other advantages are there to trading in these Dark Pools that the average trader/investor doesn't have access too?

There's a lot of recent talk about possible increases in regulation of the Dark Pools. Time will tell if any significant changes are made however, be prepared for a portion of the dirty underbelly of Wall St. to be exposed in the process.