The Bruce Overnight Edge: Charlie, Keith, and Mick
May 01, 2026 - Chicago, IL
Assembling The Band
Managing a healthy Alternative Trading System is an exercise in ecosystem management. You cannot build, maintain, or grow a vibrant liquid market with only one type of participant. It requires the right mix of behaviors, time horizons, and strategies.
To understand how we manage the Bruce ATS ecosystem, it helps to think like the band manager for The Rolling Stones. To put on a legendary stadium show, you need Charlie Watts keeping time, Mick Jagger moving the crowd, and Keith Richards filling the gaps. We at Bruce ATS need to work with all three to ensure that their needs are met while maintaining a focus on the best interests of the band.
When we look at Bruce ATS order and trade data1, the roles of various participants in our “band” are crystal clear.
The Rhythm Section: Proprietary Firms & Market Makers
Proprietary trading firms and Market Makers are the Charlie Watts of the overnight market. They are relentless, never missing a beat, and generate a massive 80.6% of all orders accepted at Bruce ATS. They are constantly quoting, updating, and laying down the structural foundation of the order book. While they generate over 80% of the orders, they execute only 42.7% of the shares traded on Bruce ATS. They don’t always grab the spotlight, but without them, there is no music.
The Frontman: Retail Participants
Retail flow plays the role of Mick Jagger in our band. Retail participants step up to the mic less often, accounting for only 1.3% of the total orders accepted on Bruce ATS. However, when they do act, they command the crowd. That 1.3% of orders accepted results in a massive 53.7% of the shares traded on Bruce ATS. Like Mick, Retail orders definitely punch above their weight in the overnight market.
The Rhythm Guitar: Agency Brokers
Agency brokers fill out the sound like Keith Richards. They bring 18.1% of the orders and 3.7% of the executed shares, stepping in to provide harmony and act as a bridge between the market makers and the retail buyers.
You Can’t Always Get What You Want (The Hit Rates)
In the overnight market, everyone is looking for execution “Satisfaction”. If you look beyond order volumes and analyze the “Hits”, we see different execution profiles for each of our three band members. To measure this, we track three distinct metrics:
- Hit Rate: The percentage of orders that result in at least one traded share.
- Fill Rate: The percentage of total ordered share volume that gets executed.
- Fully Filled Rate: The percentage of orders that are completed in their entirety.
One thing to note is that for all three segments, the Fully Filled Rate is a very high percentage of the Hit Rate (ranging from 52% to 93%). In other words, when an order is a hit, more often than not it is a fully filled hit, especially if it is a Retail order.
The Takeaway
Managing a “band” can be tricky work. One of the keys is communication and we are here for anything you may need. We strive every day to provide the best stage where this ecosystem can perform flawlessly.
By The Numbers
April is in the books, and it was another great month of growth here at Bruce Markets:
Weekly Top 25 Symbols2
Bruce on Tour
- Join our CEO Jason Wallach at the FIX Conference in Hong Kong on May 14, 2026.
- Jason will be visiting Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong, May 4-15th, reach out if you would like to schedule a meeting.
The Bruce Markets Team
1All data for this study is from internal Bruce ATS sources covering trade dates 04/01/2026 through 04/30/2026. The study treated all cancel/replace orders as distinct new orders and did not take order modifications into account.
2Top 25 data is from internal Bruce ATS sources through trade date 05/01/2026.