Trading Newsflashes: Barclays Capital Partners With Townsend Analytics to Offer Clients Direct-Access Trading, and more

Barclays Capital Partners With Townsend Analytics to Offer Clients Direct-Access Trading

Barclays Capital is tapping Townsend Analytics for direct market access to major North American and European exchanges for the Equities Brokerage/Execution Services division. Chicago-based Townsend Analytics, which is a wholly-owned, independently operated subsidiary of Lehman Brothers, is providing Barclays Capital with its RealTick multi-product market data, analytics and direct access trading platform

Barclays Capital formed the partnership with Townsend Analytics to offer its clients a single platform solution for seamless access to global exchanges and advanced trading functionality, stated the release.

"As a global, multi-broker platform, RealTick provides our clients with quick and efficient access to Barclays Capital's U.S. and international equity execution services," stated Kristian West, head of European Equity Execution at Barclay's Capital, in the release.

RealTick is a multi-asset, multi-broker and multi-route direct-access trading platform. "Barclays Capital's choice is affirmation of the advantages that RealTick brings to electronic trading in an increasingly global marketplace," stated Jeffrey Wecker, CEO of Townsend Analytics, in the release. "We look forward to helping them offer cost-efficient, yet high-performance, access to more asset classes and pools of liquidity in the future," Wecker added in the release.

Goldman Sachs Expands Software Licensing Agreement With Trading Technologies to Access Global Electronic Futures Markets

Goldman Sachs & Co. will distribute software from Trading Technologies International to its European clients via a high-speed network in London. This extends TT's existing U.S. software license agreement with Goldman. The deal will enable Goldman and TT to provide local services for clients worldwide who want to access the global electronic futures markets.

"This agreement enables our clients to trade futures globally via TT's X_TRADER platform from our London-based network," stated Jack McCabe, managing director of Goldman Sachs, in the release. "This will provide enhanced speed and reliability for traders based in Europe," he added in the release. According to the release, Trading Technologies will complement Goldman Sachs' existing REDIPlus futures offering.

In July, Bear, Stearns & Co. announced plans to use TTNET, TT's application service provider (ASP) hosting solution to speed up customer access to international futures markets as well as to increase reliability and trading platform stability.

The Philadelphia Board of Trade Tapped RTS to Develop Streaming Quote Software

The Philadelphia Board of Trade (PBOT) reached an agreement with RTS Realtime Systems Group to develop a streaming quote software interface that is necessary for the new PBOT futures market structure. The PBOT futures market is expected to launch in the third quarter of this year.

Under terms of the agreement, RTS will provide customer access to the PBOT via RTS's Chicago data center. PBOT will assist RTS with the establishment of customer sites designed to deliver orders directly to PBOT.

"The Philadelphia Board of Trade sees this as a significant opportunity to allow the exchange to electronically access futures players who grasp the trading opportunity of streaming quotes," stated Daniel Carrigan, VP of new product development.

According to Steffan Gemuenden, president and CEO of RTS, quoted in the release, RTS has completed implementation of the PBOT gateways. He further added in the release that RTD and eRTD software would be available for the launch of PBOT. RTS will use its data center facility in Chicago to offer leased line and Internet access to PBOT for market makers, proprietary traders and brokers.

RTS provides electronic trading software for all traded products, says the release. The company has more than 3,000 user licenses and connections to more than 70 exchanges around the world.

Rand Financial Services Offers Access to Italian Derivatives Markets

Rand Financial Services, a futures commission merchant based in Chicago, will offer clients access to the Italian Derivatives Market (IDEM), the derivatives market of Borsa Italiana. Rand is partnering with a clearing member of IDEM, according to the release.

The announcement is part of Rand's corporate strategy to offer customer access to leading international derivatives exchanges. Rand currently maintains access to 14 other global futures markets in addition to IDEM.

"In response to our client interest, Rand is very pleased to offer access to IDEM. They have some of the fastest growing products in Europe that present strong new market opportunities," stated Michael Manning, Rand CEO, in the release.

According to IDEM's Executive Director, Raffaele Jerusalmi, who is quoted in the release, "IDEM offers deep and liquid order books for both futures and options and represents and excellent diversification opportunity for the US trading community."

Rand Financial Services executes and clears futures and options on futures trades on behalf the world's leading banks, institutional clients, hedge funds, CTAs (commodity trading advisors) and non-clearing FCMs.