Most Read
- Merrill Lynch Speeds Up Application Development
- Buy Side Seeks Independent Valuation Providers for OTC Derivatives After Credit Crisis
- Getting That Single Version of the Truth on Wall Street
- SR Labs Unveils Low Latency OMS with Market Data
- Is Wall Street Ready for the iPhone?
- The OMS Dilemma: Speed vs. Intelligence
- REG NMS Cheat Sheet
- How the NYSE Achieves Low Latency
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Fidelity Top Online Brokerage for Customer Satisfaction, says Survey
February 20, 2008 @ 03:44 PM | By Melanie Rodier
Fidelity ranked last year as the top online brokerage in terms of customer satisfaction, according to a new survey carried out by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and ForeSee Results.
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Soc Gen: Kerviel Messages with Broker Revealed
February 11, 2008 @ 11:54 AM | By Melanie Rodier
With a second trader now in custody in the Soc Gen fraud scandal and rogue trader Jerome Kerviel in jail, a French magazine today published a series of instant messages Kerviel and his broker at Newedge exchanged over the course of several months leading up to their arrest.
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Software Lets Old Apps Run Faster Across Windows Clusters
February 07, 2008 @ 04:39 PM | By Penny Crosman
Ever since the clock speeds of individual computer chips stopped doubling, those who have wanted to run existing applications faster -- such as algorithmic trading desks -- have had to turn to grid computing or specialized hardware to get that extra processing power. Multicore chips (which put two, four or more computer processors on one chip) and clusters of computers hold out the promise of high-performance computing but can't truly provide it to the typical application. The reason for this, as we've noted before, is that most applications have been written in a single-threaded manner -- they're designed to do one thing at a time. For an application to take advantage of more than one processor, whether on a multicore chip or across clusters of computers, it needs to be rewritten so that it's multi-threaded (in other words, it can perform several tasks at the same time) or optimized in some other way.
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First Coverage Adds Quote Feeds to Help Buy-Side Assess Sell Side Trade Ideas
January 29, 2008 @ 02:46 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Toronto-based First Coverage is adding real-time quote feeds from global exchanges to its Web-based software, allowing the buy-side to further quantify the value of trading ideas and other research they are getting from the sell-side.
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Online Options Brokers Should Target Women and Generation Y, Survey Shows
January 25, 2008 @ 11:30 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Are you curious about the characteristics and behavior of online options traders? This week Chicago-based OptionsHouse, an online retail and institutional brokerage house, rolled out the results of its first annual survey and it found that 91 percent of options traders are men and that 57 percent are between the ages of 45 and 54 years of age. They are also educated —76 percent are college graduates, while 32 percent have graduate degrees.
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Lime Brokerage Acquires Stake in CBOE Stock Exchange
January 09, 2008 @ 02:03 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Lime Brokerage has acquired a minority stake in CBOE Stock Exchange, a subsidiary of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). The investment was made on Jan. 3, although financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Vhayu Extends Low Latency Trading Platform To Options, Futures
January 07, 2008 @ 01:28 PM | By Penny Crosman
"As the need for low latency and the ability to accommodate increasing message volumes migrates to other asset classes beyond equities, how do you deal with that?" asks Sang Lee, managing partner of Aite Group, in explaining the significance of Vhayu's announcement today that it's adding new data feed handlers to its Velocity streaming tick processing software.
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Global Trading Technology Spend Reached $45.8 billion in 2007
December 20, 2007 @ 04:50 PM | By Melanie Rodier
Global spend on trading and related technology and services reached an estimated USD$45.8 billion in 2007, according to a new report from Somerset, UK-based Kimsey Consulting.
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Remote Desktops Coming to Wall Street in 2008
December 18, 2007 @ 04:53 PM | By Penny Crosman
Here's a prediction for the coming year: remote desktopping -- in other words, moving desktop CPUs off (or out from under) desks and into racks, data centers and closets -- will hit the Street in force some time in 2008, or maybe 2009. Wachovia has already said they're kitting out the new trading floor in their under-construction Charlotte headquarters with remote desktops (or "back-racked PCs" as they call them), which will open in 2009, and the inventors of the latest generation of remote desktop technology, Teradici, say that 20 Wall Street firms have expressed interest in it.
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StreamBase Rolls Out Reuters-Centric Complex Event Processing
November 15, 2007 @ 10:16 AM | By Penny Crosman
StreamBase is announcing today that it's built a Reuters Market Data System-centric edition of its StreamBase Studio complex event processing software. StreamBase Studio itself is both an Eclipse-based graphical development environment and a CEP runtime engine that connects to all the major data feeds and can analyze those data streams in real time. Developers at about 50 Wall Street firms already use StreamBase Studio to build applications that rely on market data streams, such as automated trading, best execution and market data analytics.
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IBM Upgrades Direct, Low-Latency Delivery of Exchange Data
November 14, 2007 @ 12:04 PM | By Penny Crosman
In their ongoing quest to reduce data latency in the delivery of market data to algorithmic trading programs, Wall Street firms are starting to take data feeds directly from the exchanges, cutting out middlemen like Reuters, Thomson and Bloomberg. IBM's recently-released WebSphere Front Office for Financial Markets 2.0 is one of the few products (Wombat offers another) that can accommodate this. "Customers have told us they're interested in having a platform that can handle data that isn't necessarily tied to a data provider, says Larry Baldauf, director of financial services strategy for IBM's software group. "We can connect to different exchanges and data sources and distribute the data to applications."
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Banks to Consolidate 144A Trading on Nasdaq Platform
November 13, 2007 @ 11:03 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
A group of investment banks has decided to stop developing their own electronic trading platforms for 144A securities and instead share the single platform launched by the Nasdaq Stock Market. Yesterday the banks announced their intention to form The Portal Alliance, an industry standard facility designed to serve the market for 144A equity securities – referred to as private placements.
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Colombia Stock Exchange Builds A Scalable SOA Platform
November 01, 2007 @ 11:15 AM | By Penny Crosman
Although its climate is hotter, its industries more diverse and its market smaller, in some respects the Colombia Stock Exchange looks like any U.S. or European exchange. It grapples with the same technology issues -- such as how to get data latency below a few milliseconds and how to build an IT infrastructure that can easily scale and withstand market volatility and surges - that plague any exchange or firm with a large trading floor.
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Vhayu Offers Real-Time and Historical Order Book Analysis
October 29, 2007 @ 10:49 AM | By Penny Crosman
As order books get bigger – the Tabb Group recently estimated that in just equities and options, the volume of market data messages across the global exchanges will soar from under four billion messages per day in 2006 to nearly 130 billion per day by 2010, as the number and variety of trading venues increases, as trades become smaller (e.g. 100 shares per order), as cancels and replacements accelerate, and as Reg NMS and MiFID make it necessary for firms to prove best execution, the need for an engine that can process and store that order book data efficiently becomes greater.
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NYSE Euronext and Partners to Create Electronic Block Trading Market for European Stocks
October 24, 2007 @ 03:12 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
NYSE Euronext has partnered with two European investment banks BNP Paribas and HSBC to develop an electronic block-trading platform for large orders in Pan European stocks in a move that positions the exchange to operate a dark pool under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID).
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BREAKING NEWS: Thomson Plans to Spin Off TradeWeb
October 10, 2007 @ 02:45 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Thomson Financial announced today that nine of Wall Street's leading bond dealers are investing about $180 million to purchase a minority stake in TradeWeb, the electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities and derivatives. TradeWeb will continue to be owned by Thomson and the consortium of broker dealers. The goal of the strategic partnership is to drive TradeWeb's expanson into multi-asset class trading and to create more of a unified platform with integrated processing for the trading of fixed-income, equities and derviatives, according to the release.
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SIBOS 2007 Snippet: BT and Low Latency
October 01, 2007 @ 03:56 PM | By Greg MacSweeney
When you pick up a phone, you usually don't think about how the call gets from your handset to the person on the other end. But as trading requires lower and lower latency, many traders have started to think about how their orders and messages get from point A to B.
Many associate BT with just telephones in Britain, but the London-based company has almost equal in size in the U.S., according to Chris Pickles, manager of industry relations for BT Radianz. BT has 4,500 financial services clients in the US, another 4,500 in Europe and a couple of thousand in Asia, he reports. And, globally, BT handles 100 million messages per second.
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CAPIS Shifts OMS to Fidessa Trading Platform
September 24, 2007 @ 12:13 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Capital Institutional Services (CAPIS), the global agency brokerage firm based in Dallas, said it’s moving to the Fidessa trading platform as a replacement for its proprietary order management system. “Technology wise it’s probably the most important decision we made in our 30-year old firm,” says Jim Morrow, COO at CAPIS in an interview on Friday.
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FX Bridge Taps FIX Flyer for High Speed Integration
September 18, 2007 @ 11:18 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
As the adoption of the FIX fuels electronic trading in foreign exchange and expands into new areas such as FX options, banks are demanding integration with back office and risk management technology. Today, FX Bridge Technologies, an Atlanta-based developer of FX trading and dealing systems, announced that it’s partnering with New York-based FIX Flyer to integrate the FIX messaging standard into its solution.
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Where Oh Where Has The Order Flow Gone?
September 12, 2007 @ 03:48 PM | By Greg MacSweeney
At Advanced Trading's Peer-to-Peer Multiasset Class Trading Executive Roundtable yesterday, a couple of roundtable delegates wondered where all of the order flow and liquidity has gone and pondered whether the markets will be able to withstand a truly volatile trading day with extremely high trading volumes.
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Audentes Technology Deploys Orc Liquidator
September 12, 2007 @ 12:32 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
As black box trading takes off, Audentes Technology LLC, a small Chicago-based proprietary trading firm, has deployed Orc Liquidator from Orc Software as its derivatives algorithmic trading platform. Audentes declined to comment, but in a statement, Libby Christy, operations manager for Audentes Technology, said the firm was impressed by Orc Liquidator's fast time-to-market, low latency, and connectivity to a large number of markets."
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Wall St. Opens It's Arms to Electronic 144A Marketplaces
August 15, 2007 @ 08:21 PM | By Cory Levine
This week has seen a flurry of activity in the development of electronic platforms for trading equity offerings by private companies that fall under a href=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_144A" target="_blank">Rule 144A of the U.S. Securities Act. The rule allows for the private resale of securities between institutional investors, which gives private companies a means for raising capital without listing publicly.
Nasdaq announced the availability of an extension to its Web-based PORTAL platform that allows for displaying and accessing liquidity in 144A issuances. Additionally, heavy-hitters Citi, Lehman Brothers, Merril Lynch, Morgan Stanley and The Bank of New York Mellon revealed their plans to create OPUS-5, a competing platform for 144A listings. And to round out the competition, Bear Stearns got in on the act this week, launching its 144A platform, Best Markets, in the U.S.
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Goldman Sachs to Buy Stake In DirectEdge ECN
August 13, 2007 @ 04:02 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Goldman Sachs Group agreed to purchase a minority equity stake in DirectEdge ECN, its parent Knight Capital Group announced today. Goldman will join Citadel Derivatives Group LLC, an affiliate of Citadel Investment Group, LLC, which purchased a minority equity interest in DirectEdge ECN in a transaction that closed on July 23, 2007.
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Lime Brokerage Serves Up Low Latency Data to Brokers
August 01, 2007 @ 11:18 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Lime Brokerage, a direct-access agency broker located in the Tribeca section of New York City, recently began offering a service bureau model providing low-latency market data to other brokers dealers, according to George Hessler, EVP at Lime who heads sales and strategy. As one of the leading low-latency agency brokers, it does a lot of work with high frequency hedge funds. In fact, Lime’s founder and director, Mark Gorton and its CEO and co-founder Alistair Brown, co-founded hedge fund manager Tower Research Capital, specializing in quantitative trading and investment strategies.
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NYSE Euronext Develops Dark Pool for Crossing Portfolios
July 24, 2007 @ 06:20 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
With dark pools gaining traction among institutions seeking leak-proof matches, one of the world’s largest liquidity pools is venturing into the crossing network space. By the end of this summer, NYSE Euronext is expected to launch NYSE MatchPoint – a point-in-time benchmark crossing-network geared to large index funds and mutual funds looking to matching portfolios of stocks.
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BIDS Trading Exceeds 20 Million Shares in Block Volume
July 18, 2007 @ 01:38 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Dark pools give us something to talk about when they release volume figures. On Monday, BIDS Trading L.P., an alternative trading system (ATS) focusing on U.S. block equity trading, announced it had executed more than 20 million shares in daily volume twice last week. BIDS Trading operates BIDS ATS, an anonymous trading system launched in the spring of 2007 by a consortium of major brokers. Even though the nascent block-crossing venue has plenty of competitors in the ATS space including Liquidnet, ITG POSIT, NYFIX Millennium and Pipeline Trading, BIDS appears to be building momentum right out of the gate because of the liquidity pools and customer bases of its strategic partners.
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On Point Executions Launches Options Smart Order Router
July 16, 2007 @ 03:15 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
With liquidity and quote traffic escalating across the options exchanges, On Point Executions —an agency-only broker dealer — has launched a smart-order routing solution today called STING that can sweep all six equity options exchanges simultaneously to extract 100 percent of the displayed liquidity. The options broker caters to the sell side has been beta testing the smart-order router and sweeping technology since January with several broker-dealer clients and market makers.
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XBRL – Breaking Into the Equity Analysis Bastion
July 09, 2007 @ 12:02 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
By Raghuvir Mukherji
Senior Consultant, Financial Securities
Domain Competency Group
Infosys Technologies Ltd.
Raghuvir_mukherji@infosys.com
After giving traders and order routers a bad scare in the form of algorithmic trading, technology is now in a position to threaten equity analysts, or make their job simpler, depending on where one is in the equity analysis ‘value chain’. The advent of the internet and the use of XML (eXtensible Mark Up Language) enabled the quick transmission of information across the globe between people and machines using different software systems.
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Citi's Acquisition of ATD Intersects with Private Equity
June 27, 2007 @ 11:33 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
It’s no accident that Citigroup (Citi) is close to acquiring Automated Trading Desk, a computerized market-making firm for $700 million, as reported by the Wall Street Journal Online yesterday and Reuters this morning. Both financial services companies have connections to the private equity world where relationships are cultivated and exit strategies are born.
In January of this year, ATD received a $60 million investment from private equity firm Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) based in Palo, Alto, Calif. Back in April of 2002, Lava Trading secured a $30 million financing led by Boston-based TA Associates. TA eventually exited the investment in Lava by selling Lava to Citigroup in 2004. “TA Associates was the primary equity firm that invested in Lava Trading before it was sold to Citibank and Lava was almost entirely a technology play,” said Peter Kent, CFO of ATD said in an interview with Wall Street & Technology last month. [See "Private Equity Gold Rush," July 2007]
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Towergroup Coverage: Let's Meet for Dinner on the Floor of the NYSE
May 31, 2007 @ 01:39 PM | By Greg MacSweeney
It was only four short years ago when Robert Hegarty, the managing director for Towergroup's Securities & Investments practice, made the statement that the NYSE trading floor will never go away. How quickly things change. In his presentation today at this year's Towergroup Financial Services and Business Technology conference, Hegarty joked, "Oops, I'm eating crow on that one, but soon we will all be eating crow in a very nice restaurant on the floor of the exchange" after the exchange eventually closes all of the trading floors. Hegarty highlighted some of the notable staffing cutbacks that many of the broker dealers and specialists have made in the past few months as they continue to reduce their floor presence on the NYSE.
Comment on this blog entryCreditex Acquires Stake in Trade Settlement Inc.
May 16, 2007 @ 04:32 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Eyeing the market for loan-only credit default swaps, Creditex Group has acquired a minority stake in Trade Settlement Inc. (TSI), a privately held company that operates a post-trade processing platform for syndicated bank loans.
As part of the transaction, both companies are also announcing a partnership between TSI and T-Zero, an independently managed subsidiary of Creditex Group, which operates a post-trade affirmation platform for credit default swaps. The partnership will enable T-Zero, a technology agnostic firm, to expand its affirmation platform into the syndicated loan market.
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NASD Issues Guidance for Reg NMS Trade Reporting
May 15, 2007 @ 04:33 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
As brokers prepare to comply with the Pilot Stocks Phase of Regulation NMS scheduled for July 9th, the NASD issued guidance last week clarifying how member firms should report their trades to the tape. The notice provides guidance on how to use the NASD’s new transaction reporting modifiers when brokers are reporting trades that are exceptions or exemptions to Rule 611 of Reg NMS to NASD facilities.
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Bear Stearns Sounds the Death Knell for Its Specialists
May 14, 2007 @ 08:38 PM | By Cory Levine
The next domino toppled today for floor-based specialists, as Bear Stearns announced it will write down the value of its specialist business, Bear Wagner, by $225 million. Firms all along Wall Street have been re-evaluating their specialist staff as the New York Stock Exchange has implemented its Hybrid market and shuttered one of its trading floors. Other firms to have slashed specialist numbers include UBS, Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Van der Moolen.
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SEC Regs Too Much? Try Trading in 103 Foreign Countries
May 10, 2007 @ 11:10 AM | By Melanie Rodier
With full implementation of Reg NMS just around the corner and MIFID looming in Europe, broker dealers on both sides of the Atlantic are busy navigating new regulations. But what are the regulatory implications for a broker dealer who executes deals with countries around the world?
New York-based securities firm Auerbach Grayson provides trade and post-execution services in 103 countries, representing more than 250 equity and equity derivatives exchanges across the world's developed, emerging and frontier industries, from France to Uganda and North Korea to Bangladesh.
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SIFMA Market Structure Report: Brokers Wait for Clarifications on Block Trades as July 9 Reg NMS Implementation Approaches
May 08, 2007 @ 05:49 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Broker dealers are waiting for regulators to clarify certain issues in advance of the July 9 Reg NMS implementation date, according to a panel at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Market Structure conference last Friday.
The majority of the unresolved issues are around the block trade exemptions, when to time the trade and print to the tape and sweep and what to do with the residual that is left over, said Christopher Concannon, EVP Transaction Services at a href=http://www.nasdaq.com target="_blank">The Nasdaq Stock Market. There are also questions about self-help procedures as well as certain order types such as intermarket sweep orders or ISOs.
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ISE CEO Krell Announces Retirement
April 05, 2007 @ 09:10 PM | By Cory Levine
International Stock Exchange boss and industry luminary David Krell announced his retirement this week, effective at the end of the year. While he will vacate the role of CEO, the exchange's Board intends to elect him as Chairman. He will be succeeded by current COO Gary Katz.
Katz and Krell have enjoyed 21 years working together, and co-founded ISE ten years ago.
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Virtual Stock Exchange Opens in Second Life
March 16, 2007 @ 05:49 PM | By Penny Crosman
After we wrote about Saxo Bank’s opening an office in the virtual world Second Life, 24-year-old Australian entrepreneur Luke Connell contacted us to tell us about the securities exchange he opened recently in Second Life called World Stock Exchange. This simulated stock exchange opened on March 5 and trading volume has exceeded $23 million in virtual dollars (approximately $90,000 U.S. dollars). Connell, whose Second Life alter ego is called LukeConnell Vandeverre, explained how and why his investment firm, Hope Capital, and others are doing business on the computer animated Second Life site, and how people can make or lose real money by investing in a simulated stock exchange.
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Symons Reaps Benefits of Market Downturn
March 02, 2007 @ 03:27 PM | By Kerry Massaro
Many firms were affected by the market downturn on Tuesday, Feb. 27 — some negatively and some positively. Symons Capital Management was able to turn the chaos into an opportunity by dipping into its cash reserves and getting good prices as the market was going down.
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Swapstream to Expand Electronic Trading Into Short-Term Interest Rate Swaps
January 31, 2007 @ 04:25 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Swapstream, the London-based multilateral electronic trading platform for interest rate swaps (IRS), will expand its marketplace in mid-February with the launch of Eonia (Euro Overnight Index Average) swaps trading facility.
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Aqua Hires Fishkind to Drive Global Sales for New ATS
January 31, 2007 @ 04:18 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Aqua — a new alternative trading system (ATS) owned byeSpeed Inc. and Cantor Fitzgerald focused on offering block liquidity to institutions, hedge funds and brokers — announced the hiring of Andrew Fishkind as global head of sales.
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Instinet and FlexTrade Launch Portfolio Trading Optimizers
January 25, 2007 @ 12:01 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Portfolio trading seems to be gaining momentum on the buy side. This week, Instinet and FlexTrade Systems both announced portfolio-trading optimization tools that come up with best trading schedule for a portfolio of stocks.
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BOX Files to Cut Fees in Penny Pilot; AFA Adds Options Trading
January 24, 2007 @ 01:38 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
The Boston Options Exchange said it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to reduce fees in preparation for the Penny Pilot Program in which options will trade in one-penny increments.
The proposed change will reduce the trading from the standard $0.20 to $0.15 per contract.
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GL Trade Connects to Instinet’s Chi-X for Pan-European Equity Trading
January 24, 2007 @ 12:59 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
GL Trade, the Paris–based supplier of front-to back-office trading systems, is offering connectivity to Chi-X, one of the first Pan-European alternative trading systems (ATSs) to arise in response to the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), which goes into effect in November of 2007. Under MiFID, an ATS like Chi-X will be known as a multilateral trading facility or MTF.
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Cinnober Rocks the BOAT
January 22, 2007 @ 02:59 PM | By Cory Levine
Industry consortium BOAT selected trading technology provider Cinnober Financial Technology as the underpinnings of its market data platform. The consortium of global investment banks also announced that Markit Group Ltd. will partner with BOAT to manage business operations.
BOAT was launched in September 2006 to provide a reporting facility for pre- and post-trade data that will be distributed to banks in order to help meet the requirements of EU regulation MiFID. The database of trade data will be accessible by both the buy side and sell side.
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NYSE Fines Seven Specialists
January 17, 2007 @ 12:39 PM | By Cory Levine
NYSE Regulation yesterday announced censures and fines for seven member specialist firms, to the tune $2.8 million total. The fines are the result of multiple trading violations that occurred between 2003 and 2006.
The firms were fined for breaking the firm quote rule, under which NYSE specialists are required to execute orders presented to them at prices that are at least as favorable as the NYSE's published bid or offer. The specialists firms also failed to honor commitments to buy or sell coming from the Intermarket Trading System. Other violations included failure to maintain written supervisory procedures, failure to display eligible limit orders and improperly executed short sales.
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GL Trade Acquires FNX Solutions
January 17, 2007 @ 09:45 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
With over-the-counter products showing faster growth than exchange-listed instruments, Paris-based GL Trade is acquiring FX Solutions, a provider of front-to-back-office products used by capital markets firms and hedge funds to manage and process OTC products. The deal will be closed in February of 2007, according to Monday’s release. FNX will enhance TRADIX, GL Trade’s existing capital markets offering, which generates sales of a little over 4.5 million euros. FNX expects revenues of 11 million euros in 2006, most of which is recurrent, and expects revenue growth of 25 percent over the next two years, said the release.
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James Leman Joins Westwater Corp.
January 11, 2007 @ 01:12 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
James Leman, an industry veteran who brings 20-plus years of expertise in electronic trading as well as middle and back-office technology strategies, has joined Westwater Corp. as managing director and head of its Capital Markets Practice.
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OptionsHouse Goes Lives with Online Trading Site
January 10, 2007 @ 04:58 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
OptionsHouse, a new discount brokerage firm launched its online Web site on Monday offering stock and options trading at a simple, flat-fee rate to retail investors and institutions.
Targeting savvy traders, the start-up is a spin-off of PEAK6 Investments LP, a Chicago-based equity option market maker based which leased space on the Chicago Board of Trade’s original 1930 trading floor.
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Creditex Spins Off Q-WIXX Execution Service for Large Credit Derivatives Portfolios
December 20, 2006 @ 04:44 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Creditex Group is spinning off a new electronic platform, Q-WIXX Inc., for trading large credit derivatives portfolio. The automated execution service conducted its first beta trade for a portfolio valued at $1 billion (500 million euros) consisting of 131 North American and European credit derivatives names.
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OTC Derivatives Update: DTCC Partners With CLS; T-Zero Integrates With GEM’s FpML Mediator
December 14, 2006 @ 01:37 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Automation of the OTC derivatives market continues to be a priority for the industry.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) announced its selection of CLS Bank International (CLS) to provide central settlement of payments for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives contracts housed in DTCC’s DerivSERV Trade Information Warehouse.
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Reuters Releases News Products to Drive Automated Trading
December 14, 2006 @ 11:38 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Reuters announced two products this week that allow customers to incorporate news into automated trading strategies. Both products fall under Reuters complete suite of offerings for automated trading and form part of its Core Plus strategy.
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NYSE Group Will Buy Messaging Expert TransactTools
December 14, 2006 @ 10:50 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
NYSE Group signed a definitive agreement to acquire TransactTools Inc., a leader in providing enterprise-messaging solutions for the securities trading industry. The transaction is expected to close in early January 2007, though financial terms were not disclosed.
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Equity Exchanges Launch Reg NMS-Compliant Systems
December 07, 2006 @ 01:06 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
In case you had any doubt that stock exchanges would get their electronic trading systems up and running in time for the Regulation NMS deadline, this week three U.S. equity exchanges — Boston, Chicago and NYSE — made significant progress toward reaching that goal.
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ICE to Open E-Trading Facility in NYMEX's Neighborhood
December 07, 2006 @ 01:00 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Intercontinental Exchange, the Atlanta-based electronic energy marketplace, has licensed office space in lower Manhattan’s World Financial Center, signaling a desire to expand its presence in the same complex where its main rival, The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), is located. The new offices will serve as a state-of-the-art electronic trading center providing access to ICE’s electronic markets as well as host training and marketing activities.
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Creative Destruction in Real-Time Data Feeds (Guest Blog Entry)
December 05, 2006 @ 05:31 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ken Barnes, Wombat Financial Software
Perhaps you’re a member of a high frequency equities trading operation looking to fuel your strategy formulation and execution applications with the highest quality data available. To this end you may have spent considerable time sourcing and cleaning historical databases, eliminating the noise of bad prints and anomalies in the tails.
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Instinet Prepares to Launch Canadian ATS
December 04, 2006 @ 06:02 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Ramping up its efforts to develop alternative execution venues outside the United States, Instinet plans to launch an alternative trading system (ATS) in Canada, called ICX (Instinet Canada Cross).
The ATS will operate as a continuous, electronic auction market for trading Canadian exchange-listed securities, according to the release. ICX is expected to launch in 2007 and will be operated by Instinet I-X Limited, a soon-to-be registered Canadian investment dealer, pending regulatory approval.
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Creditex Completes Merger With CreditTrade
November 28, 2006 @ 02:52 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Creditex completed its merger with CreditTrade, underscoring plans to create a global leader in voice, hybrid and electronic execution in the credit derivatives market. The transaction, announced on July 25, has received both NASD and FSA approvals, according to Tuesday’s release.
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Tradeware Expands DMA to Mexican Stock Exchange
November 28, 2006 @ 02:45 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Tradeware Global Corp. has established an agreement with Interacciones Casa de Bolsa, among the largest Mexican brokers, to provide electronic direct market access (DMA) to the Mexican Stock Exchange through FIX connectivity.
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The BOX Files to Participate in Penny Pricing Pilot
November 28, 2006 @ 02:40 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
The Boston Options Exchange (BOX) has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to participate in the penny pilot program for option trading, which will begin on Jan. 26, 2007. In addition, BOX has also filed a quote mitigation plan to help manage market data traffic, according to the announcement.
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ISE Stock Exchange to Launch Displayed Stock Market
November 28, 2006 @ 02:32 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
The ISE Stock Exchange will unveil its fully displayed stock market on Friday, Dec. 8, according to an announcement by the publicly traded International Securities Exchange (ISE), which also operates the leading all-electronic U.S. options exchange.
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Penson to Purchase Schonfeld’s Clearing Business
November 22, 2006 @ 10:43 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Penson Worldwide agreed to acquire the clearing business of privately held Schonfeld Securities, LLC, a New York-based securities firm, which has been a pioneer in active trading.
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Penson to Purchase Clearing Biz of Schonfeld Securities
November 22, 2006 @ 10:43 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Penson Worldwide agreed to acquire the clearing business of privately held Schonfeld Securities, LLC, a New York-based securities firm, which has been a pioneer in active trading.
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NeoNet Eyes Asian Expansion and New Hires
November 21, 2006 @ 05:38 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Direct market access broker NeoNet Securities plans to offer connectivity to Asian markets next year and will expand its staff at its Jersey City, New Jersey headquarters.
The expansion of its exchange connectivity will start during the first half of next year, with the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan, according to Greg Treacy, director of sales at the firm. NeoNet expects to add four to five new positions at the Jersey City office, including technologists, traders and sales people to support the firm’s growth, says Treacy.
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SEC Exemption Expands NYSE Bonds' Universe
November 17, 2006 @ 06:07 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Days after announcing partnerships with Kestrel Technologies and Townsend Analytics (TAL) to provide access into NYSE Bonds, its new electronic fixed-income trading marketplace, NYSE Group received regulatory approval to vastly expands the number of debt securities it can trade through the revamped electronic fixed-income marketplace.
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Kestral and TAL to Provide Access to NYSE Bonds
November 16, 2006 @ 01:50 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
NYSE Group selected Kestrel Technologies and Townsend Analytics to provide market participants with access to NYSE Bonds, its redesigned electronic bond-trading platform that will trade corporate bonds issued by companies listed on the exchange.
The exchange is currently developing the all-electronic bond system to run on the NYSE Arca matching engine. In preparing for the launch in early 2007, it’s choosing multiple front-end platforms to provide the issuers, traders and investors with connectivity into the bond marketplace, pending SEC approval.
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Korean Exchange Taps Progress Apama for Algo Trading
November 16, 2006 @ 11:46 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Algorithmic trading is soon coming to Korea. The Korean financial software IT vendor Koscom has picked the Progress Apama Algorithmic Trading Platform to facilitate algorithmic trading on the Korea Exchange (KRX). In addition, Progress and Koscom have entered into a strategy partnership whereby Koscom will develop a localized version of the Apama platform for distribution in Asia.
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RBC Capital Markets Picks Wombat Messaging Software
November 15, 2006 @ 05:29 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
RBC Capital Markets’ proprietary trading desk has signed up for Wombat Financial Software’s market data platform to achieve low-latency market data distribution and integration.
RBC will deploy Wombat’s MAMA platform above TIBCO/Rendezvous (RV) messaging software, according to the release.
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Fidessa Expands Buy-Side EMS into Asia
November 09, 2006 @ 04:00 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Eyeing the global market for institutional trading, Royalblue’sFidessa launched an execution management system (EMS) workstation for buy-side trading desks in Asia.
The EMS is a global, broker-neutral, multi-asset execution platform for buy-side trading desks in Asia, according to Wednesday's release.
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NYSE Group Cuts 520 Positions
November 09, 2006 @ 12:03 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
NYSE Group will reduce its workforce by 520 positions as part of an organizational downsizing aimed at cutting costs and improving efficiencies, it announced on Wednesday.
The staff cuts impact approximately 400 employees and 120 full-time consultants from its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NYSE Arca and Securities Automation Corporation (SIAC) business units.
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eSpeed Sees Court Decision as Win in TT Patent Case
November 08, 2006 @ 02:04 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
On Monday, eSpeed said that a recent court decision over the scope of Trading Technologies International’s (TT) patent infringement claims favors eSpeed and its Ecco subsidiary, and enables them to offer a variety of user interfaces to conduct futures transactions.
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Fidelity Launches ATS
November 06, 2006 @ 04:45 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Fidelity Capital Market Services, a unit of Fidelity Brokerage Company, has launched CrossStream, an alternative trading system (ATS) that anonymously matches brokerage clients’ buy- and sell-side orders against the diverse order flow of the agency brokerage house. The new ATS will not publish bids and offers before client’s orders hit the Street, according to yesterday’s announcement.
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Amex Selects Lava for Outbound Routing
November 02, 2006 @ 12:46 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
The American Stock Exchange (Amex) has selected Lava Trading to provide private linkage services for sending outbound orders to other market centers publishing protected quotes in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation NMS.
The linkage service will be rolled out with the Amex’s new Auction and Electronic Market Integration (AEMI) platform, the exchange said.
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Nomura to Acquire Instinet
November 02, 2006 @ 12:36 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Nomura Holdings, the Japanese financial services conglomerate, has agreed to acquire Instinet Inc., the global agency broker, in an all cash transaction, according to today’s announcement. The purchase price was not disclosed.
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Lek Securities Battles NASD Over OATS Regulation
October 25, 2006 @ 06:04 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Lek Securities is taking the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) to court to counter charges that the broker-dealer did not submit trade information required for compliance with the Order Audit Trail System (OATS). The trial was scheduled to begin today.
Lek is challenging the NASD charges on the basis that OATS is illegal and improperly structured, according to a release issued by the institutional direct-access broker-dealer.
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Interactive Brokers Offers Penny Priced Options
October 25, 2006 @ 05:46 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Interactive Brokers, the online broker located in Greenwich, Conn., began offering penny pricing in options today. IB cut the minimum price difference for U.S. listed options from a nickel to a penny.
The broker is jumping the gun ahead of the rest of the U.S. options industry, but not for long. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) mandated a penny pilot program beginning on Jan. 27, 2007, the release noted. The six U.S.-based options exchanges will have to reduce the minimum price change from five cents to one cent for options listed on 13 underlying stocks.
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Instinet and Credit Suisse to Access Each Other’s Dark Pools
October 25, 2006 @ 09:59 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Instinet and Credit Suisse’s Advanced Execution Services (AES) unit have agreed to provide their clients with access to each other’s dark liquidity pools, according to today’s announcement. The partnership between the two brokers involves Credit Suisse’s CrossFinder and Instinet’s CBX and is intended to increase institutions’ chances of executing large trades with minimal market impact.
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Aleri Labs Attacks Throughput Claims With Low Latency
October 23, 2006 @ 01:40 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Aleri Labs., a provider of event stream processing technology for the financial services industry, claims it has broken the sub-millisecond latency barrier for event stream data processing.
The new performance standard is available through Aleri Streaming Platform, a high-performance application development platform that financial firms can use to analyze market data, process trades, monitor compliance and manage risk in real time.
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Mayor Bloomberg Says His Company Is Not for Sale
October 19, 2006 @ 11:23 AM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been approached by potential buyers of Bloomberg L.P., the multibillion-dollar financial information, market data, analytics and media company he created, but he has decided not to sell the company at this time, according to a release.
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CME and CBOT to Merge Derivatives Exchanges
October 18, 2006 @ 06:59 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
The Chicago Exchange Mercantile and Chicago Board of Trade have signed a definitive agreement to merge the two exchanges, creating a powerhouse in global derivatives trading that rivals the size of its nearest competitors.
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Holdings plans to purchase CBOT Holdings Inc., operator of its cross-town rival, the Chicago Board of Trade, for $8 billion.
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NYSE Explores Joint Trade Reporting Facility with NASD
October 17, 2006 @ 01:22 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
NYSE Group has entered into discussions with the NASD to create a trade reporting facility (TRF), serving customers reporting off-exchange trades in all listed NMS (National Market System) stocks.
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BATS Trading Warns of Spikes in Market Data Messages
October 17, 2006 @ 12:04 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
BATS Trading, operator of BATS (Better Alternative Trading System) ECN, warned participants that receive the BATS PITCH market data that it expects message activity levels to increase — partly due to systems changes related to Reg NMS — and customers may want to increase their bandwidth.
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BeX Taps Citigroup's Richardson as President
October 11, 2006 @ 05:19 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
Gearing up for the evolving equity market structure, The Boston Equities Exchange (BeX) — an electronic stock market owned by the Boston Stock Exchange and five securities firms — announced that C. Thomas Richardson was named its new president, assuming the role as of Nov.6
Richardson joins BeX, a joint venture, electronic equity exchange owned by the Boston Stock Exchange and five equity partners — Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Fidelity Brokerage Company, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.
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TradingScreen Recruits Bloomberg’s European Head of FX Sales
October 11, 2006 @ 05:15 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
In a move to offer FX trading on its multi-asset, global trading platform, TradingScreen has hired Jonathan Cooper, former head of FX sales and liquidity at Bloomberg. Cooper is now global head of FX Sales at TradingScreen, which also launched secondary FX trading functionality.
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Cormack Departs NYSE Group; Brown Exits SIAC
October 11, 2006 @ 12:42 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street and Technology
NYSE Group announced that Mike Cormack, who joined NYSE Group following the acquisition of Archipelago in January of this year, is stepping down from his current position and will become a senior consultant to the company in early 2007.
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Instinet Unleashes Wizard, Data-Intensive Arrival Price Algorithm
October 10, 2006 @ 05:26 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
In the fast and furious race to roll out innovative algorithms, Instinet, the global agency broker, launched Wizard, a new twist on the arrival price algorithm.
The system was configured to create a trading schedule for each stock in a portfolio by factoring in the historical volatility of stock and options prices. Arrival price — the price at the time an order arrives in the market — becomes the benchmark for the trader.
What makes the model powerful is that it’s based on actual trading history — prices and volatility — and the average daily volumes, says Mike Plunkett, president, North America, Instinet.
Instinet developed Wizard, which was released to buy-side clients on Monday, over a 14-month period in partnership with Northfield Information Services, the Boston-based developer of analytical risk models for investment professionals.
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Commission Recapture Kicks Into Overdrive
October 05, 2006 @ 09:51 AM | By Tim Clark
By Tim Clark and Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
In the October issue of Wall Street & Technology, we explored the practice of commission recapture in the article “A Hard Act to Follow.” The catalyst for that story was derived from an insightful roundtable discussion that BNY Securities Group subsidiary Lynch, Jones & Ryan hosted with a handful of other commission recapture players. The general consensus from that meeting and in follow-up discussions indicated that commission recapture, while still a viable means to generate returns, would one day become obsolete, especially since players such as UBS and Goldman Sachs shuttered their commission recapture operations, deeming it an industry in decline.
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HG Trading Deploys Progress Apama for Algo Trading
October 04, 2006 @ 04:35 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
U.S. hedge fund HG Trading has implemented the Progress Apama Algorithmic Trading Platform for equity trading from Progress Software Corp. The boutique trading firm located in Heartland, Wisc., which specializes in high-velocity, low-risk strategies, plans to extend its uses into other asset classes, including futures and options, according to the release.
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NYFIX Partners With Paladyne Systems
October 04, 2006 @ 04:05 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
NYFIX signed an agreement with Paladyne Systems LLC. to provide FISX connectivity to the hedge fund industry through its “Powered by NYFIX” hosted solutions platform. Paladyne provides a hosted front-to-back-office technology suite to the hedge fund industry.
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NYSE Conducts Test for Hybrid Market Phase III Launch
October 03, 2006 @ 04:36 PM | By Ivy Schmerken
By Ivy Schmerken, Wall Street & Technology
On Saturday, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) conducted a market-wide training exercise involving floor brokers, specialists and other market participants to prepare for the Phase II launch of t