Solutions
Merlin Securities, a prime brokerage services and technology provider for hedge funds, has launched two technology solutions.
First, Merlin’s clients now have the option of reporting in any base portfolio currency, not just US dollars.
Second, Merlin now provides enhanced start-of-day positions following specific corporate actions that affect a client’s portfolio, allowing for more timely, efficient and informed decision-making.
Merlin has expanded its reporting and analytics platform to support non-USD-based currency reporting. This functionality will allow a fund with multiple accounts the flexibility to have different base reporting currencies for each. For example, a fund with a separately managed
Quantifi, a provider of analytics, trading and risk management solutions, has been chosen by Oracle Capital for the pricing and analysis of its structured credit portfolio.
Founded in 2009, Oracle Capital is based in Hong Kong and focuses on fixed income products, particularly in the areas of credit, fixed income derivatives and securitisation.
The initial fund invests in products that reference corporate credit risk, including cash and synthetic CDOs.
Leon Hindle, chief investment officer at Oracle Capital, says: “Valuation and risk management are key components in everything we do, and it became clear that Quantifi was the best fit for
Commissions paid by institutional investors to brokers on trades of US equities are falling far short of projections to this point in 2010.
The results of Greenwich Associates’ latest US Equity Investors Study reveal that the amount of brokerage commissions paid by US institutions on trades of domestic equities decreased 13 per cent to an estimated USD12.1bn from Q1 2009 to Q1 2010.
Despite that falloff, US institutions entered this year predicting that commission payments would surge in calendar year 2010 in step with expected strength in both stock market performance and trading volume.
Buy-side traders at US institutions projected
Members of the International Capital Market Association favour end of day publication of trading prices, a survey has found.
The members were asked for their views on post trade transparency – i.e. the availability of prices on trades in corporate bonds that have been done between two counterparties directly rather than on an exchange.
Asked at what point, post trade, prices should be published, respondents indicated strongly (57 per cent) that end of day pricing was ideal with a strong preference for high/low/median end of day prices rather than actual or aggregate trade prices.
Most respondents (77 per cent) also
HPC Platform, a provider of data packet processing solutions, has changed its name to NovaSparks.
Founded in 2007 by Marc Battyani and Eric Le Rolland, HPC Platform offers stable sub- microsecond latency for ticker plant, market data distribution and other data services.
Le Rolland says: “After an intensive period of research and development, we decided it was time to raise our profile further. This involved reviewing our brand and we are delighted to officially announce our new change of name to NovaSparks.”
NovaSparks offers the latest disruptive technology which reduces the latency involved in market data ticker plant
NYSE Euronext set an all-time record of 13.3 million global derivatives contracts traded per day in May 2010.
European derivatives average daily volume increased 51.5 per cent, driven by a 56.6 per cent increase in fixed income derivatives product ADV and a 48.8 per cent increase in equity derivatives products.
US options ADV increased 90.3 per cent and market share increased to 26.0 per cent.
Cash equities ADV was also strong in May 2010, with European cash trading volumes increasing 37.3 per cent compared to prior year levels.
US cash trading volumes of 3.8 billion shares in May 2010 were
Singapore Exchange says 40 per cent of its broking members, numerous proprietary trading firms and several vendors including crossing network operator Chi-East have chosen its new co-location service months before its first quarter 2011 launch.
By re-locating their trading applications to the new Singapore Exchange data centre, co-location customers can transact with Singapore Exchange’s trading engine at the lowest possible latency.
Singapore Exchange will also house its market data and clearing infrastructure at the data centre.
Singapore Exchange launched its co-location offering on 3 June as part of a USD250m initiative to deliver the world’s fastest access to Asia.
Customers
At the derivatives markets of Eurex an average daily volume of 16.2 million contracts was traded in May 2010, up from 11.8 million in May 2009.
Of those, 12.2 million contracts (May 2009: 7.4 million) were traded at Eurex and another 4.0 million contracts (May 2009: 4.4 million) were traded at the International Securities Exchange.
The strong increase of Eurex turnover of 65 per cent year-on-year is due to the increasing use of exchange-traded and centrally cleared derivatives in the current market environment, which was driven by high volatility and uncertainty as well as the dividend season.
In total, 335.7
Tora, an Asia-based provider of trading technology and financial services, is expanding Tora Crosspoint to cover new markets including Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia, following the launch of the service for Japan.
Tora Crosspoint is an off-exchange liquidity venue comprised of Tora’s internal liquidity flow and the aggregation of liquidity from multiple venues in Asia, such as broker crossing engines and third-party pools.
It provides the trading community with a central point of access to multiple off-exchange liquidity venues without requiring any changes to their existing workflow.
Tora Crosspoint was launched for Japan in February 2010 leveraging the internal
Singapore Exchange’s derivatives market will start trading the new SGX Nikkei Dividend Point Index futures from 17 June, making SGX the first Asian exchange to trade a dividend futures contract.
The SGX Nikkei Dividend Index futures will expand SGX’s existing range of Nikkei products.
The Nikkei 225 Index futures traded on SGX currently accounts for 30 per cent of global trading of the contract.
The SGX Nikkei Dividend Index futures contract is based on the Nikkei Stock Average Dividend Point Index. Nikkei calculates the index based on accumulated dividends received by investors from constituent companies of the Nikkei Stock Average
