Electronic Trading Briefs

Hotspot FX, Inc., a global, online market for spot foreign exchange trading, began trading U.S. Dollar/Polish Zloty (USD/PLN) and Euro/Polish Zloty (EUR/PLN) spot markets yesterday. The Watchung, N.J.-based futures-commission-merchant (FCM) cites demand from new customers and introducing brokers in Europe and the United States as reasons for developing the new Zloty currency pairs. In addition, it offers trading in all leading U.S., European and Asian currency pairs. The company also licenses its trading platform to other financial institutions and companies on a white-label basis.

The International Securities Exchange (ISE -- the only fully electronic U.S. options exchange -- was the largest U.S. equity-options-exchange in March, for the second consecutive month. ISE's equity options market share rose from 18 percent in the same period a year ago, to 27 percent in March, an increase of 50 percent. ISE traded 16.8 million equity options contracts in March, up 70 percent from 9.9 million contracts traded in the year ago period. Average daily volume in March was 800,608 contracts, compared with 499,143 contracts a year ago.

Deutsche Bank AG in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan has been certified for FIX connectivity with Charles River Development, the software developer reports. FIX certification between the two firms ensures that any investment manager client using the Charles River Trading System can electronically trade through Deutsche Bank using the full-range of commonly-used FIX message types, including list messages, IOIs (indications of interest) and qualified/foreign investor IDs.

As part of its continuing cost-reduction effort, Instinet Group will reduce its workforce by approximately 175 employees, (or 12 percent of full-time employees), across its U.S. and international operations. The company expects this round of reductions -- the result of attrition and elimination of positions -- will result in an estimated $20 million reduction in its operating costs on an annualized basis. The company says this is on top of the $100 million cost-reduction-target previously announced.