Trading on First North is carried out in the electronic trading system SAXESS, developed by OMX. SAXESS offers functionality to support both order driven markets and price driven markets. For order driven markets, bids and offers are entered in the relevant order book and automatically matched to trades when price, volume and other order conditions are met. For price driven markets, interests are entered into the relevant order book and transactions are negotiated manually and reported into the system. SAXESS also offers functionality to support issuing of new bonds via an electronic order book. The trading is decentralized, which means that member firms are connected to the system and trade from their respective home offices, inside and outside the Nordic countries.
SAXESS is a state-of-the-art trading system with a capacity for handling more than 2000 orders per second. It gives member firms access to an electronic order book for each financial instrument with a number of capabilities supporting and increasing liquidity. It is designed to carry out trading in equities and bonds as well as a wide range of other financial instruments. Thus, it offers the member firms on the exchanges equal and easy technical access to the Nordic securities markets.
Information is presented in real-time on the traders screens in the form of order books, market briefs, trade information, index information and various reports. All market participants receive market information simultaneously.
Broadly speaking, the SAXESS system consists of three main parts: the central SAXESS system, a network and a local environment at the member firm. The local member system usually consists of a number of workstations, which are connected to the network via a server. The member firms either develop their own local systems environments to communicate with the SAXESS system or buy a system from a third party supplier. There are a number of third party solutions available on the market.
An important function in SAXESS is multicasting. With this function, a transaction from the central system to the communication computer is copied and multicasted to all connected workstations and computers simultaneously. The multicast function is used to give all traders quick and fair information on changes in the order books as well as concluded trades.
First North is an alternative market, operated by the different exchanges within OMX. It does not have the legal status as an EU-regulated market. Companies at First North are subject to the rules of First North and not the legal requirements for admission to trading on a regulated market. The risk in such an investment may be higher than on the main market.
Rules & regulations
First North is an alternative market, but it does not have the legal status of a regulated market. Regulated market is a term used in the coming EU directive, regulating Securities Companies and Exchanges, called MiFID. The term regulated market includes the Swedish notion Exchange. According to MiFID, an Exchange can organize trading with a less complicated set of rules within the framework of a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF). Issuers on First North are subject to the rules of First North (“the Rules”) but not the legal requirements for admission to trading on an Exchange.
