May 23, 2012
Portware, NYSE Technologies, SunGard and more…
Portware to expand
Alpha Pro to FX execution
Execution management and post-trade services provider
Portware is to adapt Alpha Pro, the algorithmic execution tool it acquired from
Aritas Group earlier this month, for FX transactions.
Aritas, formerly known as Pipeline, first launched Alpha Pro last summer as a tool
to help buy-side traders find the optimal strategy for different types of
trades. Alpha Pro uses real-time predictive analytics and market signals to
recommend trading strategies and works in conjunction with the firm’s
Algorithmic Switching Engine to choose appropriate algorithms over the course
of the trade. The technology draws on 180 different algo strategies in total.
Portware is
currently adapting the Alpha Pro tool and the Algorithmic Switching Engine,
with a view to launching it in the FX space as early as June.
“This is a
natural extension of our broker-neutral trading solutions, and allows us to
partner with the entire broker community to maximise the benefit of these
advanced analytics,” said Alfred Eskandar, CEO of Portware. “Our goal is to
empower traders to analyse, communicate and execute their investment ideas in
an automated way. This acquisition allows us to offer any firm, regardless of
size, an extraordinary level of automation and choice in their trading
workflows. Clients can direct order flow to multiple brokers, improve execution
quality, and reduce trading costs while delivering consistent results across
multiple strategies.”
NYSE Technologies
brings cloud platform to Europe
NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology arm of NYSE
Euronext, has expanded its Capital Markets Community Platform into Europe.
Operating from NYSE Euronext’s European liquidity centre in Basildon, UK, the
cloud-based platform was designed to increase business agility,
simplify market access and reduce trading friction by using on-demand computing
resources.
NYSE Technologies worked together with computing firms EMC
and VMware to develop the offering. Originally launched on 1 July 2011 from
NYSE Euronext’s US liquidity centre in Mahwah New jersey, the Community Platform provides direct, on-demand access to the NYSE Technologies
portfolio of low-latency services including Superfeed, Managed Transaction Hub
and the Secure Financial Transactions Infrastructure network.
“Innovations such as NYSE Technologies’ Capital Markets
Community Platform provide solutions that will drive efficiencies in the
capital markets at a critical time, and help our customers unlock their
potential,” said Dominique Cerutti, president and deputy CEO, NYSE Euronext.
“Our cloud-based Capital Markets Community Platform empowers market
participants, who are looking to reduce their IT infrastructure costs as well
as gain rapid access to global markets and market information.”
RenCap connects to
emerging markets via SunGard
Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital, which
specialises in emerging markets, has joined financial technology provider SunGard's Global Network (SGN).
Renaissance Capital will be able to provide brokerage
services for the Russian markets to the 2,000 asset managers and 530 brokers
linked by SunGard’s international trading network.
SGN community members will also be able to route trade order
flow via RenCap directly to Russia’s MICEX-RTS Exchange Group and the London Stock
Exchange’s international order book, where Russian stocks comprise 92% of trade
volume.
“Connecting to the SunGard Global Network will help us
expand our geographic reach and increase our visibility globally,” said Sam
Atkins, head of electronic trading group product development and exchange
connectivity at Renaissance Capital. “Firms linked to the SunGard Global
Network will be able to access our advisory services and leverage our expertise
to access both emerging and frontier markets.”
Meanwhile, SunGard has extended its suite of securities
finance solutions with the launch of Apex JSFC Trade Manager, which is designed
to help reduce the costs and increase the productivity of lenders participating
in the Japan Securities Finance Corporation (JSFC) daily auction of securities
lending requirements.
Each day, the JSFC publishes the borrow requirements of
market participants so that holders of stocks can submit their best offers in
an effort to capture those lending opportunities. Apex JSGC Trade Manager
automates the bid submission process and offers analytical tools to help traders determine
the best quantity and fee for each stock and make better bids.
FlexTrade Systems
connects to SIX Swiss Exchange
Execution and order management systems vendor FlexTrade
Systems has become an approved independent software vendor with SIX Swiss
Exchange.
FlexTrade will provide direct access to SIX Swiss Exchange
via its execution management system, FlexTRADER, a multi-asset
trading solution with pre-defined strategies and tactics for both portfolio and
single stock trading. The platform provides real-time and post-trade analytics
(FlexTQM), predictive analytics (FlexEdge) as well as risk and cost-optimised
portfolio trade scheduling tool (FlexPTS).
It also provides integrations with order management systems,
integrated real-time allocations and cash management, smart order routing, a
complex event processing engine, commission management, transaction and IOI
quality management and a strategy matrix.
Cinnober acquires
Nomura’s Swedish technology centre
Trading technology provider Cinnober has agreed to buy Nomura’s Swedish technology development organisation in Umea. The deal includes
40 specialists in developing equity trading applications and platforms.
The acquisition provides Cinnober with expertise in execution
services as well as high-volume, low-latency data warehousing and is part of
the firm’s planned expansion of its product portfolio.
The technology development office stems from a Swedish
financial IT company called Interbizz, founded in 2000. In 2003, Lehman
Brothers acquired the company, which later was responsible for developing the
London Stock Exchange multilateral trading facility system Baikal, among
others. Nomura acquired the business as part of its purchase of Lehman Brothers' European and Asian businesses in 2008. The main focus for Nomura’s Umea
team has been developing detailed analytics in real time. The team has also
delivered platforms for trade reporting, market statistics and information.
“This is a great step in our company’s development and moves
us toward our vision for growth ahead,” said Nils-Robert Persson, executive
chairman of Cinnober. “I am very pleased that we’re now expanding our family
with many highly skilled developers who – like the team in Stockholm – also
have a proven track record within financial technology for marketplaces, banks
and brokers.”
Meanwhile, data centre services provider Equinix has entered
into an agreement to acquire ancotel, a provider of carrier-neutral
co-location and interconnection services in Europe. With the acquisition of
ancotel, Equinix gains one data centre in Frankfurt with 2,100 square meters of
data centre capacity and increases its European network density by adding more
than 400 network customers, which includes 200 new networks and 6,000
cross-connects.
The acquisition is expected to close in Q3 2012, while
ancotel’s assets also include edge nodes in Hong Kong, London and Miami, giving
Equinix additional points of presence in these markets.
Bloomberg acquires
PolarLake, launches EDM services
Bloomberg has acquired Dublin-based software provider
PolarLake and is launching a new enterprise data management (EDM) service to
help companies acquire, manage and distribute data across their organisations.
EDM is the process by which a firm manages reference data
through its entire supply chain: how it acquires, shares, cleanses, manages,
owns and distributes data to all users. Bloomberg’s new EDM unit, with the
addition of PolarLake, will allow firms to increase their efficiency by better
managing high volumes of data from multiple sources, either third parties or
proprietary sources.
PolarLake will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of
Bloomberg, but will operate as an independent business unit.
“The PolarLake purchase is a strong signal to the
marketplace that Bloomberg intends to be a leader in the enterprise data
management business,” said Thomas Secunda, Bloomberg co-founder and global head
of Bloomberg’s financial products and services.
Elliott Holley
+44 (0)20 7397 3820
elliott.holley@information-partners.com