Instinet Inc. saw the highest U.S and international institutional volumes in its history during the first quarter.

The firm increased its average daily U.S. trade volume to 133 million shares, which represents 2.8% of the total U.S. equity markets volume and an increase of 20% over Q1 2005. The firm also saw a significant increase in business from its trading algorithms and crossing products, particularly the pre-market VWAP Cross, which executed more than 40 million shares on several occasions during the quarter.

Alex Goor, Instinet co-president, commented, “As a pure agency broker, we are seeing a tremendous response from our customers to our ability to offer both the execution tools and upstairs liquidity needed to achieve best execution.”

Instinet went private when Nasdaq purchased the firm and retained the INET ECN, while selling off the institutional brokerage to Silver Lake Partners.

Instinet also increased its average daily consideration traded in Europe to US$885 million, representing growth of 47% over Q1 2005. And, in Asia daily trading for the quarter increased to US$574 million, a 115% jump from Q1 2005. The surge remains fueled by the firm’s success in Japan, where it traded 1.9% of the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s total volume in the quarter.

“In many ways, Instinet is the only truly global agency broker,” said John Fay, Instinet co-president and head of its international business. “Our global platform offers customers the most sophisticated trading
technology available plus access to experienced sales traders located in each of the world’s eight largest equities markets. In addition to the global trends driving growth in international markets, there is a secular trend in Europe and Asia towards unbundling and electronic trading. Our value proposition places us squarely at the intersection of these trends.”

“Instinet is benefiting from the return to its historic roots as a private company and its position as the premier global institutional agency brokerage,” said Ed Nicoll, Instinet CEO. “When our deal with Nasdaq closed last December, we told our global institutional customers that we would focus on three things — continuing to help them achieve best execution, delivering top-notch trading technologies and providing the best possible access to the international markets. We feel we’ve made significant strides in each of those areas, but realize that with a client base that includes some of the most sophisticated buy-side clients in the world, we must never stop delivering value in order to earn their business.”