Reuters says anonymous trading via dark pools is growing in popularity. Pension and hedge funds are some of the biggest users of dark pools. These funds use dark pools to move large amounts of stock without revealing who they are.
When pension funds and hedge funds want to sell or buy shares...usually thousands at a time...they prefer to do it anonymously....and usually.. on an electronic trading system. These so called "dark pools" are changing the face of trading but could systems designed to make trading more efficient have the opposite effect?
Reuters says these dark pools make up about 10% of the trade. Reuters explains how they work in the video below. Wikipedia lists several of these dark pool crossing networks.
