Solutions
BTIG, a broker dealer specialising in institutional trading and related brokerage services, has launched a global futures trading desk led by Robert Gagnon, who joins as head of futures sales and trading.
The desk will include new hires Suraj Raythatha and Allison Carley.
The desk is staffed by traders with an average of more than ten years of experience in futures, and provides access to 35+ global markets and more than 1,500 products. This includes specialty markets such as the London Metals Exchange and the energy complex, both listed products and OTC.
“Of the 1,800 institutional clients that trade with
Derivatives exchange Eurex has launched its latest software release.
Eurex Release 13 provides members with more flexible clearing solutions, new risk management functionalities and enhancements in the trading layer, for example a new optional interface and a further optimised matching system.
The risk management features included in Release 13 contribute to European and US regulators’ goals of achieving higher safety and stability of financial markets. The main components in the clearing and risk management areas are a client asset protection solution and new pre-trade risk management tools.
The client asset protection solution will enable Eurex Clearing users to choose among
ABN Amro Clearing clients can now access Forex markets via tick-TS’ (tick Trading Software) own multi-asset platform, TradeBase MX, due to the recent connection of the Currenex platform.
“This makes TradeBase MX an excellent integrated tool for our high frequency clients to access our internalised, low latency liquidity pool from this multi-asset platform,” says Andrew Gibson, sales manager-FX products at ABN Amro Clearing.
In addition to the front-end features offered by TradeBase MX, ABN Amro Clearing clients can also make use of the TBMX application programming interface (API).
Oliver Wagner, chief executive of tick Trading Software, says: “For us, the
The highest average trade price in six months may signal the return of stability to the secondary hedge fund market, according to the October edition of the Hedgebay index.
October’s average of 81 per cent is the second consecutive monthly rise shown by the index, after averages of 74 per cent and 78 per cent in August and September respectively.
Though still some way off the year-to-date peak of 91 per cent, October’s figures show that the hedge fund market is moving steadily in the right direction.
The last six months have been characterised by volatile trading patterns, and Hedgebay
Algorithmics, a provider of risk solutions, has expanded the customisation capability of Algo Risk Service, a hosted risk management, portfolio analytics and decision support tool, by adding eight new service extensions.
Algo Risk Service is a managed service that offers the configuration flexibility normally associated with an in-house deployment.
Algo Risk Service extensions are optional service extensions that give clients access to a range of advanced data management, optimisation, analysis and reporting tools, managed and supported by Algorithmics’ financial engineers and risk practitioners.
Roger Orde, senior director, Algo Risk Service, says: “Since its launch, Algo Risk Service has been
Derivatives exchange Eurex will offer futures contracts based on dividends of Swiss companies starting on 30 November 2010.
The new contracts are based on dividends from ABB, Compagnie Financière Richemont, Roche, Credit Suisse Group, Nestle, Novartis, Schweizerische Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft, Swisscom, UBS and Zurich Financial Services.
All underlying firms are part of the Swiss blue-chip index SMI.
“The listing of our new Swiss single stock dividend futures reflects the growing demand by investors for exchange-traded and centrally cleared products. Based on the success of our listed dividend futures, our customers have expressed further interest in Swiss-based contracts. Our new offering enables investors
Global derivatives average daily trading volume totalled 7.5 million contracts in October 2010, up 6.2 per cent versus the prior year but down 2.9 per cent from September 2010, according to figures from NYSE Euronext.
The increase in global derivatives ADV versus prior year levels was driven by a 23.8 per cent increase in US equity options ADV, partially offset by an 8.4 per cent decrease in European derivatives ADV.
Cash equities ADV in October 2010 were down year-over-year, but both European and US cash trading volumes increased from September 2010 levels by 3.0 per cent and 3.8 per cent,
GFI Group has introduced a new flat price Henry Hub Natural Gas desk.
Based in New York, the desk is led by a team of three brokers, Greg Chaves, Chris McHugh and Eugene Marquardt, who have a combined 50 plus years of experience in the commodities markets.
The new desk will work closely with GFI Group’s electronic trading platform for commodities, EnergyMatch.
Chaves, McHugh and Marquardt had worked previously together at BNP Paribas where they started the unleaded gas futures trading group. Former members of the New York Mercantile Exchange, they brokered energy commodities for BNP Paribas for over ten
Vantage Software has launched the Visual Pipeline Dashboard on its Insight reporting and analysis tool.
The Vantage Insight reporting and analysis platform provides the alternative investment industry with a management dashboard and data warehouse tool.
The Visual Pipeline aims to better support the development efforts of investor relations, deal and executive management teams. A single glance provides an understanding of deal and fundraising efforts, both how they are progressing over time as well as by characteristics such as industry, team member or region.
"Vantage Insight provides private equity executives with the ability to better understand team focus and manage results,"
Syncova, a provider of margin and financing solutions to hedge funds and prime brokers, has signed hedge fund Platinum Partners Value Arbitrage Fund as a new client for its Syncova Optima platform.
Founded by Mark Nordlicht in 2003 and managed by Platinum Management (NY), Platinum Partners Value Arbitrage Fund is a multi-strategy hedge fund based in New York.
Platinum Partners has chosen to deploy Syncova’s Optima platform, a margin and finance calculation engine that provides transparent and wide-ranging reporting. Optima enables hedge funds to calculate their expected margin requirement, reconcile and control differences, and attribute margin requirements to internal
