Morgan Stanley and Barclays Capital join Trade Ideas

Investment banks Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley have become shareholders in Trade Ideas Limited.
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Investment banks Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley have become shareholders in Trade Ideas Limited (TIL). TIL is a participant-owned platform that owns and operates a central hub facility which enables brokers and their institutional clients to respectively send and receive trade ideas on a permissioned basis. TIL was created to provide an open facility for idea messaging between the numerous vendor and proprietary front-end electronic alpha capture and trade idea publishing systems.

TIL was founded by Citi, Credit Suisse and BofA Merrill Lynch in 2004 and has operated its central utility service since November 2005.

Richard Kyd, director of electronic alpha capture at Credit Suisse says that recent market conditions have boosted TIL's position, “We started in a bull market. As volatility has increased it is by definition harder to find alpha. Electronic alpha capture is a systematised approach to capturing or tracking that and TIL makes it easier for participants to connect.”

Buy-side users are able to use their own systems or they can adopt vendor systems which can then connect via the hub says Kyd, “We are front end or platform agnostic.” The application programming interface for the hub has been modified to accommodate more banks and systems, he adds. Kyd believes the investment from Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley demonstrates a shared vision with the other participants.

TIL is currently focused on supporting growth and evaluating how it can further enhance services to market participants.

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