CIX Trading Inc. haslaunched its alternative trading system (ATS) in Canada, becoming the first newstandalone Canadian equity marketplace in more than a decade.London's trading industry is coming home!The launch comes asCanada's equity-market infrastructure is also undergoing consolidation. Earlierthis year, TMXagreed to acquire Cboe's Canadian exchange businesses, including CboeCanada and MATCHNow, in a deal valued at $300 million.CIX Starts Trading With 25 SecuritiesCIX has started livetrading with around 25 actively traded securities. It plans to expand coverageto about 100 securities before moving to full symbol coverage as part of theinitial rollout.The new marketplace ispowered by technology from IntelligentCross, a US equity ATS operated byImperative Execution. CIX has introduced three separate trading venues, eachoffering a different way for market participants to trade and access liquidity.IntelligentCrossMIDPOINT allows trades to take place at the midpoint of the best availablebuying and selling prices without displaying orders publicly. ASPEN offers bothdisplayed and non-displayed orders, while ASPEN VERT provides another tradingoption with a different fee structure.The venues areintended to serve Canadian dealers, institutional investors, retail brokers,market makers and other market participants.Fractional Shares and Longer HoursPlannedThe underlyingtechnology uses trading data for individual stocks to determine when tradesshould take place. CIX said this is designed to reduce market impact and othercosts that can affect execution.Jeff Foster, CEO ofCIX, said the company was created to bring trading technology used in othermajor markets to Canada."We founded CIXbecause we believe Canadian investors and market participants should haveaccess to the same advanced trading innovation available in the world's leadingmarkets," Foster said.Beyond its initialoffering, CIX has also received approval to introduce fractional-share tradingand extended trading hours. The company expects these features to becomeavailable later this year, subject to industry and regulatory readiness.With the initialrollout now underway, CIX plans to expand its securities coverage and add theapproved trading features later this year.This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.