Interesting trading in IBG over the last couple of days, and a...

Interesting trading in IBG over the last couple of days, and a response from ASX to clarify.

Thank you for your email.

ASX would like to thank you for making the time and effort to lodge your report

ASX notes it is not uncommon for the course of trading in a stock to show alarge number of small volume trades. These are often part of a broader tradingstrategy, including:

• A broker seeking to execute an order at the volume weighted average price (“VWAP”) – to achieve this, the broker will typically split the total order into multiples of smaller orders, with these smaller orders being executed throughout the course of the day in order to replicate as close as possible VWAP for the day;
• A broker completing a large volume order by breaking it into a number of smaller orders - by doing this, the broker does not alert the market to the full size of the order and thereby avoids possible disadvantageous price movements; or
• A broker seeking to discover if there may be hidden supply of, or demand for, a stock.

These are all legitimate trading strategies.Small volume trades therefore should not be assumed to be indicative of marketmanipulation.

ASX notes that high-frequency trading continues to be a controversial subjectin many markets overseas. However, the Australian Securities and InvestmentsCommission (“ASIC”) has extensively studied the effect of high-frequencytrading in Australia and concluded that it does not, on balance, negativelyaffect market efficiency or effectiveness. We refer you to a copy of ASIC’smost recent report on the matter available at this link: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/find-a-document/reports/rep-452-review-of-high-frequency-trading-and-dark-liquidity/

If you have any further queries, please do nothesitate to contact ASX Customer Service on 131 279 or +61 2 9338 0000 ifcalling from overseas.

Kind regards,

Kimberley
Customer Service Officer

cheers.