Jan - Mar 2007, Issue 11

Will Project Turquoise and other MiFID-inspired initiatives rock the trader's world or will it be business as usual when the dust settles? Richard Schwartz

Robert Flatley, global head of autobahn equity at Deutsche Bank, discusses the growing demand for customised non-voice services and the distribution challenge this presents.

Buy-side traders should be wary of brokers that suggest a target quota for automated flow, warn Yvonne Hansmann, head of EMEA execution sales and Dirk Griesmeyer, head of continental sales trading at Merrill Lynch. Such are the changing dynamics of daily trading desk flows that a suitable algorithmic order is hard to define.

There is a strange phenomenon going on in the US stock markets: no one knows what on earth is going on anymore, and the markets are better for it. Dan Mathisson, managing director and head of Advanced Execution Services at Credit Suisse in New York examines how dark pools are taking order secrecy on Wall Street to a new level.

The pursuit of liquidity is uppermost in a clients' execution strategy: finding the other side can have material benefit to execution performance. Brokers have delivered liquidity-seeking algorithms for this reason, but it is important to note that one global implementation does not fit all markets, argues Owain Self, managing director – equities, European algorithmic trading team at UBS.

Trading will never be the same after MiFID. Jerry Lees, head of alternative execution at CA Cheuvreux examines how market participants should prepare for the challenges that lie ahead.

Joseph Wald, CEO, EdgeTrade, challenges the assumption that smart order routing is the appropriate tool to deal with liquidity fragmentation. The challenge, he suggests, is to bring intelligence to the execution process.

Fred Francis, head of global markets for RBC Dexia Investor Services, argues that custodians need to build a new business model to keep pace with clients.

Saheed Awan, head of product management at Clearstream, considers the role of securities finance in buy-side portfolio enhancement.