Liquidnet, an institutional investment community that enables secure and anonymous block trading of equities, has expanded its trading operations to include listed securities from Israel.

Liquidnet will commence trading in this market on 1 November making it the first block trading venue to offer direct electronic access into a Middle Eastern market.

With the addition of Israel, Liquidnet now offers trading access to 37 equities markets (plus London and Luxembourg GDRs) around the world and provides access to 100 per cent of the MSCI World Index.

“As institutional investors continue to look at newly developed and emerging markets to boost the performance of their investments, they are often restricted by a number of barriers to trading including a lack of liquidity,” says Seth Merrin, founder and chief executive of Liquidnet. “By providing access to the broadest global liquidity pool, we are creating unique opportunities for our Members to trade in high growth markets throughout the world so that they can deliver better performance to their investors.”

In 2010, Liquidnet has added a total of seven markets including New Zealand, Mexico and the Eastern European markets of Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia.