what is xetra 
the term xetra refers to an electronic german stock exchange based in frankfurt the system is owned and operated by the deutsche b rse group launched in 1997 the trading platform offers electronic trading in stocks funds bonds warrants and commodities contracts the majority of trades executed in germany go through xetra in addition to about one third of continental europe s trading in exchange traded funds etfs investors who use xetra can take advantage of the low costs high transparency and quick execution times whenever they make trades understanding xetraas mentioned above xetra is a fully electronic trading platform headquartered in frankfurt germany the exchange is operated by deutsche b rse group which also owns the frankfurt stock exchange fra or frankfurter wertpapierb rse 1 deutsche b rse group is a diversified organization with a range of products and services that span the financial industry s value chain this includes listing trading clearing and settlement along with custody services liquidity management and more xetra launched in 1997 and was one of the first global electronic trading systems and has grown to account for the majority of all stock trades on the fra in fact more than 90 of all share trading in germany takes place through xetra this is on top of about 30 of all etf trading that takes place in continental europe 2the xetra platform offers increased flexibility for seeing order depth within the markets and because it is a completely electronic platform it offers investors a trading platform with low costs and high transparency as well as fast turnaround times for their orders this is especially true for shares that are highly traded including those that are on the dax this index represents 40 of the biggest and most liquid german companies that trade on the fra 1trading on the xetra electronic platform takes place monday to friday between 9 a m to 5 30 p m local time there is no trading activity on major holidays the platform hosts an opening auction daily at 8 50 a m and a closing auction at 5 30 p m 3the number of trading participants on xetra about half of which are based in germany as of july 2022 4xetra vs other electronic trading systemsxetra may be one of the largest electronic trading systems in the world but it certainly isn t the only one and wasn t the first to offer the ease of automated trading the first automated system for direct trading among u s institutions was launched in 1969 and was called instinet originally named institutional networks 5 nasdaq followed with its own automated system in 1971 6 trade orders were made on these and other similar systems over the phone the new york stock exchange nyse launched its designated order turnaround dot system which allowed brokers to route orders directly to specialists on the floor in 1984 superdot emerged which effectively expanded the number of shares sent to the floor at one time to nearly 100 000 nasdaq soon offered the small order execution system soes to compete with nyse electronic trading is fairly common in today s financial industry it dominates the public markets over physical trading activity thanks to the rise of internet technology in fact very few exchanges offer trading on a physical trading floor instead the majority of trading takes place globally on electronic platforms like xetra but there are risks notably greater cybersecurity threats while individuals remain at some level of cyber attack risk larger entities such as businesses and government systems are often the main targets of cybersecurity attacks the u s department of homeland security uses high tech cybersecurity measures to protect sensitive government information from other countries nation states and individual hackers any financial system that stores credit card information from its users is at high risk along with systems like exchanges 