The Trade Asia held its annual awards event on 24 October at the Conrad Hotel in Hong Kong, with UBS, Credit Suisse and ITG among the winners.
The awards were won on the basis of a poll undertaken during the summer.
On the buy-side, Kent Rossiter of Allianz Global Investors won the buy-side trader of the year. He has been a well-known and respected member of the buy-side over many years in his Asia-centred career. He has a reputation for being an insightful proponent of his industry and craft, as well as being an energetic spokesman and advocate of the issues that drive his business.
Sam Kim of BlackRock won an award for the best buy-side implementation project of 2013 for his work on the organisation of BlackRock’s regional trading desks in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo.
On the sell-side, recognition was achieved by UBS, which won awards for anonymity, execution consulting and trader productivity.
ITG took home awards for crossing capability and for price improvement.
Credit Suisse, excelled in both customisation and consistent execution quality.
The event also played host to a panel discussion, held in association with Bloomberg Tradebook, on the subject of “challenges to finding liquidity in Asia.”
Participating on the panel were Kent Rossiter, head of trading, Asia Pacific at Allianz Global Investors, Tom Kingsley head of APAC execution consulting at Bloomberg Tradebook and Philip York, the CEO of Alt 224.
Discussions covered regulation in Asia, especially the heavy workload from Hong Kong’s electronic trading rules and the infrastructures of Asian exchanges. Philip York expressed how members of the eTrading Association, of which he is a director, are especially interested in changes to issues surrounding time stamping.
Kent Rossiter commented on block trading and how a trader can build a book in Asia today as well as how blocks can add to price discovery.
The discussion also covered how Asia’s buy-side has come to terms with algorithm execution. It addressed the vast array of algorithms on offer and how a reduction in their numbers might be appreciated by traders.
The panellists considered the status of dark pools in Asia and how sizeable flow is being crossed up away from traditional exchanges.
Sponsorship for the evening’s event was provided by Bloomberg Tradebook, BNP Paribas and Instinet.
The full list of The TRADE Awards 2013 winners can be found below.
Algorithmic trading
- Crossing capability: ITG
- Client support and services: Deutsche Bank
- Reduced market impact: Instinet
- Anonymity (hedge funds): Goldman Sachs
- Anonymity (long only): UBS
- Reduced overall costs: BNP Paribas
- Customisation: Credit Suisse
- Latency (long only): Citi
- Latency (hedge funds): J.P. Morgan
- Trader productivity (long only): Bank of America Merrill Lynch
- Trader productivity (hedge funds): UBS
- Consistent execution quality: Credit Suisse
- Price improvement: ITG
- Execution consulting and pre-trade estimation: UBS
- Leading and large clients: Morgan Stanley
- Asia-based clients (long only): Macquarie
- Asia-based clients (hedge funds): Credit Suisse
- Ease of use (long only): Morgan Stanley
- Ease of use (hedge funds): Bloomberg Tradebook
Algorithmic trading – ones to watch
- Ones to watch — Client numbers: Barclays
- Ones to watch — High client scores: Liquidnet
Execution Management Systems
- Market penetration: Bloomberg EMSX
- Overall customer satisfaction: TORA
Buy-side awards
- Buy-side trader of the year: Kent Rossiter, Allianz Global Investors
- Buy-side project of the year; Sam Kim, BlackRock