ESMA publishes data for quarterly bond liquidity assessment and the systematic internaliser calculations
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its quarterly liquidity assessment of bonds and data for systematic internaliser calculations for various financial instruments under MiFID II and MiFIR. The quarterly liquidity assessment of bonds is based on quantitative liquidity criteria, including daily average trading activity and the percentage of days traded per quarter. There are currently 1,233 liquid bonds subject to MiFID II transparency requirements. The full list of assessed bonds is available through ESMA's Financial Instruments Transparency System (FITRS) and the Register web interface. The transparency requirements for bonds deemed liquid will apply from 18 November 2024 to 16 February 2025. ESMA also publishes data for systematic internaliser quarterly calculations, covering equity and equity-like instruments, bonds, and sub-classes of derivatives. The data covers the period from 1 April 2024 to 30 September 2024 and includes 25,819 equity and equity-like instruments, 146,127 bonds, and 6,214 sub-classes of derivatives. Investment firms are required to perform the SI test by 15 November 2024. The data is available through FITRS in XML files with a publication date of 31 October 2024. The publication includes data for instruments traded or available for trading during the reference period considered, incorporating OTC trading to the extent it has been reported to ESMA.