Insights

Two Droughs, One Summer

Every summer liquidity drains out of European order books the ordinary way, as desks thin down for the holidays and depth quietly migrates to September. This year a second drought arrived on the first of the month, and it will not lift when the weather does. The market that opened on July 1 is smaller, more concentrated and more conventional than the one it replaced, and the list of firms allowed to operate in it has become the single most important document in the industry.