Category: ET-Your SayOn 09 May 2008 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading 
Chi-X Europe has recently celebrated its first anniversary of offering live trading. Like many people, Chi-X likes to understate its age – for the Chi-X Europe team, it wasn’t merely a one year celebration, but also marked a two-and-a-half year milestone since it first scoped out the requirements to launch a pan-European MTF.
On 04 Apr 2008 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
Even before coming into force on November 1 2007, MiFID had become a catalyst for change in the financial markets. The anticipated abolition of concentration rules introduced the concept of competition between trading venues in many European markets. Furthermore, the advent of the MiFID best execution requirements calls for financial institutions to define an execution policy that explores a variety of trading venues in search of liquidity and best prices. As a result, over the past two years the directive has become a strong determining factor for all trading technology purchasing decisions.
On 01 Jul 2007 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
At least a dozen vendors in the market right now – Aleri, Apama, BEA, Coral8, Streambase, Truviso and others – are advertising a technology intended to revolutionise the way you approach business automation. It’s called complex event processing (CEP), and though it offers an effective way to realise time and event-driven systems, it isn’t so much a break from the past as an evolution of best practices developed during decades. CEP is based on design patterns that have been percolating in academia and financial institutions for years and have appeared in tools performing business rules management (BRM), business process management (BPM), business orchestration and workflow automation.
A-Team’s Algorithmic Trading Directory, now available, is an easy-to-use reference guide providing the industry’s only apples-to-apples comparison across the algorithmic trading models on offer from sell-side institutions. The directory provides a series of detailed supplier profiles with descriptive information on the algorithms available, and analyses of who should be using them, under what market conditions and when.
On 01 May 2007 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
While a greater range of trading systems are now available and more accessible to the buy side, there is much confusion as to what will meet all of their trading and compliance needs in the ever-more complex global marketplace.
On 01 Apr 2007 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
The traditional separation of asset classes into distinct business organizations with incompatible trading systems is an idea whose time has ended. Today the growing quest to automate every variety of asset trading – and in so doing to make possible the trading of assets among different classes – has created a growing business case for cross-asset systems. Still, business case notwithstanding, it remains all too easy to fail at cross-asset trading. Here are some tips on how to succeed.
On 01 Mar 2007 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
As the US continues to be engulfed by so called “dark pools of liquidity”, and as Europe expects significant growth in this area, buy and sell side firms are busy revising their trading strategies to tap into these sources in an increasingly fragmented market.
On 01 Jun 2006 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
In increasingly complex and regulated markets, it is becoming essential for buy- and sell-side firms to invest in order management systems (OMSs) to effectively manage and control trading processes, from decisionmaking and placement, through to compliance, and settlement.
On 01 Jan 2006 in ET-Algorithmic Trading, ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
The desire to succeed in the increasingly competitive trading world has resulted in a marked uptake in algorithmic trading, with the adoption of algorithms growing faster than any other trading tool. Against this backdrop, institutions are looking for technology that supports their unique trading techniques.
On 01 Aug 2005 in ET-Compliance, ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), due to be implemented across the European Union by April 2007, has been described by some as pure cost pain for little liquidity gain. Whether or not you subscribe to that particular view, what’s certain is that the pending regulation will have significant impact on the front office in terms of conduct of business, best execution and order-handling processes?
On 01 Jun 2005 in ET-Algorithmic Trading, ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
Transaction cost analysis systems have come a long way over the past ten years.
Institutions used to wait months to receive analysis just to evaluate their spread costs. Then came the iceberg followed by VWAP…
On 01 Apr 2005 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
Just over a year since its inception, and some six months on from the launch of its strategic Algo Connect service, Banc of America Securities’ Electronic Trading Services (ETS) reports healthy demand for its services among its buy-side and, now, sell-side clientele.
On 01 Nov 2004 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
How to gain competitive advantage in algorithmic trading - by looking beyond the black box. By Dr. John Bates, Founder & CTO, Apama.
Over the last couple of years, algorithmic trading has become the name of the trading game: financial institutions have sought to take advantage of the speed this type of trading offers to outwit both the market and their rivals.
On 01 Oct 2004 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
By Mark S. Volker, senior vice president and product manager at SunGard, responsible for STN Securities, which encompasses trade automation solutions for equities, fixed income and post-trade services.
The post-trade debate was re-ignited in March when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) solicited comments regarding transaction settlement processes. As issues surrounding same-day trade affirmations, a shortened settlement cycle and the elimination of physical certificates were reexamined, it became clear the industry had again shifted away from a push toward T+1. Today, firms seek the broader goals of STP – automating all phases of securities transactions, including post-trade, and mitigating trade related risks. Only when these goals are reached will an industry-wide move to T+1 be possible.
On 01 Sep 2004 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
Basic instant messaging offers little to the sophisticated trader. But using this technology as a foundation stone provides the ability to add layers of functionality, each with a number of highly efficient and effective trading tools and just as importantly helping to improve the speed and process of successful decision-making.
On 01 Jul 2004 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
U.S. investment managers and mutual funds have slashed their use of soft dollars this past year in anticipation of regulatory moves, with many planning to continue reducing their use in the near future.
On 01 Jun 2004 in ET-Connectivity, ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
Chris Church, executive vice president and head of global sales & marketing at Radianz,
sees opportunity in complexity.
Institutional brokers, their algorithmic trading groups, and direct-access system providers aren’t the only ones in today’s fast-changing market to see the opportunity thrown up by linking to buy-side order management systems. Network services providers see value too.
On 01 Apr 2004 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
In the technology frenzy of the late 1990s, financial institutions of all sizes raced to stake their claim on whatever they could grab of the web. Some of the hastily fenced-off acres of Internet were fertile with business benefits. Others were commercially desolate, but prized nonetheless by techies looking to smarten up their resumes and boards seeking to impress their shareholders.
On 01 Apr 2004 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
Transaction network and application providers have had a difficult time in the last few years. Trading volumes in many financial products diminished significantly and business models that had feverishly extrapolated into hyperspace crashed back in a haze of red ink.
On 01 Jan 2004 in ET-Your Say, Electronic Trading
Post-dot.com, market pressures have led to a shift from the excitement of ‘New Economy’ to the pragmatism of the ‘Low Operating Cost Economy.’ This fundamental change in approach to supply and procurement of trading technology was forced upon financial institutions re-evaluating ROI, and had a devastating impact on the technology vendor community.
