Hunting where the ducks are

IT IS a gutsy, un-Swiss bet. On June 25th the Swiss Stock Exchange (SWX) moved its trading of blue-chip Swiss shares—lock, stock and barrel—from Zurich to London, joining forces with Tradepoint, a small electronic exchange already based there. Virt-X, as the new exchange is called, aims not only to dominate trading in Swiss shares, but also to grab a big share of pan-European trading. Its first day went well: euro2.5 billion ($2.2 billion) of trades, of which 12% came from non-Swiss shares, including GlaxoSmithKline and other British blue chips.