Solutions
Total volume in NYSE Liffe’s AEX-index daily and weekly options has now passed 20 million contracts.
Designed with short-term trading strategies in mind, the contracts were launched in March 2008 and May 2006 respectively and are traded on the Amsterdam market.
Daily and weekly options cost less to trade than longer-dated alternatives.
The short term option contracts were developed in close cooperation with market participants.
Hans Pieterse, managing director, Optiver Europe, says: “The volumes in daily and weekly AEX options confirm the model by which liquidity providers like Optiver, flow providers and NYSE Liffe have worked together to provide successful
Gain Capital, a provider of online trading services, has launched a foreign exchange trading platform that provides qualifying financial institutions, hedge funds, CTAs, high frequency traders, broker/dealers and high net worth individuals access to FX liquidity sources.
Gain’s GTX trading platform is a fully anonymous trading environment that offers direct access and trade execution capabilities via streaming prices or request-for-stream with a transparent view of both price and order book depth.
The company’s two main solutions are GTX Prime to Prime, for companies with pre-existing credit with a prime broker, and Gain Capital Direct Prime, for those without pre-existing relationships.
FTSE Group and Edhec -Risk Institute have launched an index series which uses a risk-adjusted strategy to that of traditional market capitalisation-weighted indices, to deliver investors with an optimal risk return ratio.
The FTSE Edhec-Risk Efficient Index Series, can be used by asset owners and investment consultants to capture equity market returns with improved risk/reward efficiency.
This efficiency is achieved by maximising the Sharpe ratio, by weighting the constituents of the indices accordingly.
This enhanced methodology, combined with a constituent base deriving from the FTSE All World Index Series, allows investors to develop new passive investment strategies.
Professor Noël Amenc,
Northern Trust has expanded its securities exposure reporting for clients to include counterparties for over-the-counter derivatives contracts, in addition to more traditional investments such as equity and fixed income holdings.
The incorporation of OTC derivative counterparties on the Security Exposure Analysis available on Passport, Northern Trust’s web portal, makes it easier for clients to gather and aggregate information across multiple investments and accounts.
"Market volatility and shocks to the financial system have prompted institutional investors to take a broader, deeper view of exposures for their risk management and compliance oversight programs,” says Lenora Kelley, product manager for Northern Trust’s compliance
Risk management solution provider Portfolio Science has extended the reach of its RiskAPI distributed risk engine through an agreement to integrate the product into FixQ, an enterprise investment management system from specialist software provider PortfolioShop.
RiskAPI uses an application programming interface that allows users to access exposure calculations through standard operating environments such as the Excel spreadsheet application, offering risk management capabilities to a broad spectrum of investment industry players, not just the largest and best-capitalised institutions.
APIs normally allow users to customise software by developing code that can access and manipulate the software’s features, says Portfolio Science president Ittai
Trading firm First New York Securities has launched EFX Prime Services to offer prime brokerage-related services to fund managers and active traders.
In conjunction with launch, EFX will increase its commitment to be an active allocator to emerging and established funds.
The service offering will include: multi-prime capability; trading infrastructure and related services via direct market access platforms, proprietary trading platforms and sales desks; capital introduction calendar and marketing support services; and direct allocations to fund managers via the EFX Managed Accounts Platform.
First New York managing partner Donald Motschwiller says: "First New York is excited to announce the launch
Deutsche Börse Systems is developing an ultra low latency infrastructure from Frankfurt to Paris, Amsterdam, New York and Chicago.
The new design will enable these markets to connect to Deutsche Börse, Eurex and Xetra trading systems as well as to external clients and partners with ultra low latency.
Latencies under 3.3 milliseconds will be achieved for the Frankfurt-Amsterdam connection, under 4.5 milliseconds for Paris, under 40 milliseconds for New York, and under 49 milliseconds for Chicago.
The connections combine the shortest geographic routing paths with different routing options and the latest optical transmission techniques.
“With the rapid expansion of its
NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology unit of NYSE Euronext, has launched a new class of indications of interest solution for traders seeking faster liquidity discovery.
Unlike traditional IOI services that limit how buy-side traders can view IOI and advertised trade data, ioinet v2 gives traders the flexibility to create personalised perspectives on this information.
The platform has been built to integrate additional trading analysis data and services from NYSE Technologies and third parties.
With the ability to sort and filter IOI and AT data across a wide range of custom charting techniques and “heat maps”, traders can build, save, and
Agency broker Icap Equities has launched its algorithmic trading platform Icap ALX and is beginning the process of adding clients.
The platform, developed with execution technology and algorithmic strategies provider Arctic Lake Systems, is scheduled to be delivered to Icap Equities’ client base in Q1 2010.
Phil Hodey, head of portfolio and electronic execution, Icap Equities, says: “In today’s market, our clients require sophisticated algorithmic trading solutions directly on their desktop. Icap Equities is creating a flexible suite of tools for traders and the infrastructure critical for providing a premier level of service. “
Niels Buhl, founder and
Berlin-based Tradegate Exchange, the former OTC trading platform, has been awarded the status “regulated market” as defined in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.
Deutsche Börse has acquired a 75 per cent interest plus one share in Tradegate Exchange GmbH, the stock exchange operator.
Deutsche Börse also holds a five per cent stake in Tradegate AG Wertpapierhandelsbank, one of the market makers on the Tradegate Exchange.
Deutsche Börse has the option of gradually increasing its stake in Tradegate AG to a maximum of 20 per cent. The two members of the management board of Tradegate Exchange GmbH have been appointed.
