J.P. Morgan has added access to 15 new futures markets to its Neovest execution management system (EMS) as part of a drive to build up the global platform.
The new futures markets include Brazil, Dubai, Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo, bringing the total number of accessible futures markets on the platform to 29. Market data support has also been added for calendar spreads on 25 futures exchanges. Neovest – which was acquired as an independently operated technology company in 2005 – also provides trading tools for single-instrument, pairs, portfolio, and spread trading, together with pre-, post-, and in-trade analytics.
The extension of futures support on the platform has been a priority for J.P. Morgan as the firm identified a trend towards streamlined buy-side trading desks with teams prioritising workflow efficiencies while diversifying their expertise across multiple asset classes.
“Clients are trading more globally and traders have developed the skills to trade more than one asset class,” said Bryce Byers, CEO, Neovest. “We provide a multi-asset class solution for clients, enabling them to trade futures as well as other instruments on a platform that has the specialised abilities they need.”
According to Byers, Neovest now includes functionality that a user might expect to find on a standalone futures trading platform.
“We have put a lot of effort into customising our platform, so that users can trade quickly and easily,” he said. “It sounds simple, but we really went into detail to make sure that spread matrix windows, which are specifically used for futures, for example, were included to make the user’s workflow as easy and inclusive as possible.”
Other new features on the EMS include the addition of proportional allocations, custom user-defined tickets and a custom field module.
As part of the expansion, Neovest added market data support from a Hong Kong-based data centre to serve as a local market data hub in Asia. J.P. Morgan plans to add more futures markets, support for options on futures, new updates for users, more futures-specific order types and additional trading algorithms later this year.
J.P. Morgan introduced its suite of equities trading algorithms to Brazil in November 2011, including volume-weighted average price, time-weighted average price, percentage of volume and close algos.