ELECTRONIC-TRADING NEWFLASHES

The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is using Radianz's global financial extranet, RadianzNet, for connecting financial institutions worldwide to its electronic-clearing, pricing and news service. ASX is also tapping RadianzNet, an Internet-protocol (IP)-based network, to access various services, including the Belzberg Trading Network, which Radianz announced as a customer in November 2002. In a statement, Jeff Olsson, executive general manager for production services of ASX, states that ASX is joining the company of "many prominent exchanges worldwide that rely on Radianz for secure connectivity to their customers and trading partners." These include the Boston Stock Exchange, Pacific Stock Exchange, London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (Liffe), New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, Chicago Stock Exchange and other customers including the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Calling it a milestone, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) reports that 141 active options classes, representing about 50 percent of U.S. equity options trading volume, are available for trading on its new Hybrid Trading System, CBOEdirect HYTS. By Nov. 20, CBOE expects to have more than 300 option classes available on the system, and more than 500 classes, representing 90 percent of U.S. equity options volume, available by year-end. William J. Brodsky, CBOE chairman and CEO, states, "The Hybrid Trading System has met our expectations in every way. "Preliminary results show that disseminated bid-ask spreads have tightened, displayed sizes have increase, while customers continue to benefit from the advantage of open outcry price discovery." CBOE direct HyTS was launched on June 12, and was developed to blend the speed and efficiency of electronic trading with the benefits of a floor-based auction market.

Traiana Harmony, an online service designed to streamline foreign-exchange (FX) trading, went live on Oct. 6 with five prime-brokers and eight global foreign-exchange banks participating. Traiana Harmony was created through an industry initiative led by leading prime brokers, AIG Trading Group, Deutsche Bank, JPMorganChase as well as Traiana, a San Mateo-Calif.-based software provider which brought the system live within six months. The online service, based on open standards, allows prime brokers to electronically receive "give-up" trades from executing banks and brokers in order to automate highly manual and error-prone processes. According to Traiana, prime brokers and executing brokers using Harmony are able to lower costs, reduce operational risk and increase service levels to clients.

Golden Beneficial Securities, a division of Augusta Securities, will license proprietary software from TradeTek, Ltd. to provide on-site and remote equities traders with direct data and order-execution functions. "Golden Beneficial was looking for a complete trading solution that is user friendly, fast and responsive as well as extremely cost efficient," states John Burdick, vice president of the brokerage firm. The firm will license TradeTekPro, a front-end that enables direct access and execution connection to all U.S. equity markets, electronic-communications networks and destinations. In addition, traders will use TradeTek's Trade Management Console, a suite of administrative and account-management tools to monitor, track and manage all trading activities and functions. Both products are part of the vendor's service bureau, a one-stop data-access and execution-platform.