Solutions
By James Williams – Last year witnessed an anticipated record high in quantitative (algorithmic) fund launches. As reported by the Financial Times recently, citing data provider Preqin, some 187 “quant” funds launched in 2011. Through the first six months of 2012, that number had already reached 95; the final figure is not yet known as its data normally has a six-month lag but Preqin’s Head of Hedge Funds, Amy Bensted was quoted as saying “We expect 2012 numbers to exceed those of 2011”.
Technology has come a long way in supporting systematic and high frequency traders. Many of these firms
Interview with Wolfgang Eholzer – “One of our core beliefs is that we should offer at least two ways of hooking up to our system,” says Wolfgang Eholzer (pictured), Head of Trading System Design for Eurex.
When it comes to cross-border electronic trading, Eurex Exchange has been a first mover since it was born out of the merger between Deutsche Terminbörse (DTB) and the Swiss Options and Financial Futures Exchange (SOFFEX) in 1998. While its technological capabilities have developed enormously, the ability to provide the right technology to suit different client needs has evolved as well.
Eholzer explains: “We don’t
By James Williams – Technology vendors are constantly looking for ways to support increased activity in systematic trading. Trading firms, of which high frequency traders (HFTs) are but a sub-sect, are applying high precision engineering to shave millionths of a second off their latency profile.
One such firm, Solarflare, provides low latency software and 10GbE network solutions for precision time synchronisation for application servers in co-locations at the world’s major trading centres. It has installations in all the banks and exchanges, and many trading firms.
“For example, we power the networks at Cboe, Deutsche Boerse, Nasdaq, and the NYSE, just
Average daily volume (ADV), total volume and single-day volume in futures on the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) reached all-time highs during February 2013.
The same records were also set for total exchange-wide trading.
Average daily volume in VIX futures during February reached an all-time high of 161,176 contracts. This record ADV topped the 66,924 contracts per day in February 2012 by 141 per cent and January’s ADV of 137,988 contracts, the previous record, by 17 per cent. VIX futures experienced its two most-active trading days on consecutive days during the month: 302,278 contracts on 25 February – the first time
Order book turnover on Xetra, the Xetra Frankfurt Specialist trading and Tradegate stood at EUR93bn in February (February 2012: EUR105.8bn).
Of the EUR93.0bn, EUR85.2bn were attributable to Xetra (February 2012: EUR96.4bn). EUR4.5bn were attributable to the Xetra Frankfurt Specialist trading (February 2012: EUR5.6bn).
Order book turnover on Tradegate Exchange totalled approximately EUR3.3bn in February (February 2012: EUR3.7bn).
In equities, turnover reached EUR79.1bn on Deutsche Börse’s cash markets (Xetra: EUR74.2bn, Xetra Frankfurt Specialist trading: EUR1.9bn, Tradegate Exchange: EUR2.9bn).
Turnover in bonds was EUR1.3bn, and in structured products on Scoach EUR1.3bn. Order book turnover in ETFs/ETCs/ETNs amounted to EUR11.0bn.
A total of
Wells Fargo Global Fund Services, the unit of Wells Fargo that provides fund administration and operations services to hedge funds and other alternative investment funds, has launched its new client technology solution, RealSTP.
This initial release of RealSTP will offer real-time, intra-day visibility of trade data, confirmation status, settlement activity, and cash and collateral movements to hedge fund clients of Wells Fargo’s middle-office and operations service.
It also includes an enhanced investor portal for all clients, allowing investors in funds serviced by Wells Fargo to have improved online access to their information.
Additional releases, scheduled throughout the remainder of
Simple Alternatives, along with Ineichen Research and Management, has published a research paper authored by Alexander Ineichen titled "Hedge Fund Performance".
In this research, Ineichen examines recent hedge fund performance and discusses concepts related to absolute returns investing and active risk management.
"Alexander Ineichen is a global thought leader focused on risk management, and absolute returns research," says James K Dilworth, chef executive and founder of Simple Alternatives. "We are very pleased to partner with Ineichen Research and Management on important research pertaining to our industry."
Ineichen (pictured) says: "Investing in a long-only fashion is like driving up a hill
FTSE Group has launched the FTSE Implied Volatility Index Series (IVI), an end-of-day index series that measures the implied volatility of the FTSE 100 and FTSE MIB indices.
The new indices provide an estimate of the market’s volatility expectations on the underlying index between now and the index options’ expiration, enabling investors to make better informed risk management and trading decisions.
Peter Gunthorp, managing director, research and analytics, FTSE Group, says: “We are delighted to announce the launch of the FTSE Implied Volatility Index Series, which provides investors with an indicator of market sentiment and potential future volatility. The
Alphakinetic, a fund management software provider to the investment management industry, has signed four clients since coming out of beta in 2012.
Alphakinetic’s clients are using its Glide Fund Manager platform and associated cloud-based products as part of their fund management practices.
Alphakinetic provides flexible and robust fund management software to the investment management industry. The flagship cloud-based Glide platform is used by cross-asset hedge funds, wealth managers and family offices situated across Europe. Alphakinetic also offers Glide Cloud products that allow a developer to create and access financial data content in the cloud via a simple interface.
Post-beta client
Abacus Group, a provider of hosted IT solutions for hedge funds and private equity funds, closed out 2012 with 100 per cent annual revenue growth.
In addition, the company has doubled its client base in the last 12 months, propelled by demand for its scalable, cost-effective AbacusFLEX private cloud solution.
Today’s market environment continues to impose new cost pressures and regulatory demands on asset managers, forcing top-tier, new and emerging hedge funds and private equity funds to identify new methods to better allocate IT resources and lower operating costs while still adding measurable value.
As a result, more and
