HFT Review Consolidated Feed

Emerging market trading hubs - Gateways to new venues, products and markets

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 13:52:22 +0000

Resilient Stress Testing Platforms: Top 4 Considerations

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 09:33:43 +0000

Whatâs missing from ESMAâs report?

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 15:24:01 +0000

By Christian Voigt

What to expect when youâre expecting ESMA

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 11:59:06 +0000

By Vicky Sanders, co-CEO, RSRCHXchange

New trading hubs a âgame changerâ for emerging markets

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:13:23 +0000

Searching for Handsome Returns â Can Turkey Still Deliver?

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:11:33 +0000

Michael Ourabah, CEO, BSO Network Solutions

As is customary in the ongoing search for profit opportunities, high frequency traders often look to emerging markets to leverage a country’s surging growth. However, while returns can be attractively high, traders should always keep a wary eye on whether a fledgling economy risks taking a tumble, which could lead to gains being eroded in a short space of time.

Turkey has stood out among these emerging economies in recent years. In 2011, its GDP grew by 8.8%, while the previous year’s growth was an impressive 9.2%. However, just as the country appeared to secure its place as a stable location for investment, growth suddenly dropped. In 2014, it was just 2.9%. For a developed nation, this would be an acceptable figure, but in the world of emerging markets, the change in direction caused jitters in the trading community.

Political uncertainty in the region continues to lead some investors to look elsewhere, but according to CNBC, a recent report from The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development actually projects Turkey’s GDP growth to increase gradually in 2015 and 2016. Therefore, despite trepidation, there is every reason to keep a watchful eye on developments occurring in the country.

It would be advisable to monitor economic reforms and the reaction of the national exchange before making either investment or technological decisions in Turkey. After all, the country is still determined in its mission to attract investor interest across the world. Furthermore, the national exchange is a good barometer; it has to position itself competently to remain competitive and this gives a strong indication as to the general health of the country’s markets.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

The exchange in question, Borsa Ä°stanbul, reflects a determination to establish Turkey as a global trading hub. To fulfil this objective, it underwent demutualization in 2012 and brought together all of Turkey’s capital markets in a single location. The message was clear: Borsa Ä°stanbul had positioned itself clearly to provide global investors with simplified market access, better support for technology-driven strategies and more diversification options; it was also committed to supporting high frequency trading organisations.

Since the changes, high frequency traders have increasingly co-located their connectivity infrastructures within the exchange. Removing the need to link numerous locations together, which carries a cost burden, has made operations for firms much easier. Investors often respond positively to any exchange that helps them to improve their market through colocation and Turkey’s exchange is no exception.

This is helping to raise Turkey’s global financial positioning further. Investors are already aware that the city presents an attractive proposition because of its proximity to Europe, but Borsa Ä°stanbul’s policies provide much valued data routing options for high-frequency traders keen to create low-latency trading portfolios. Globally focused exchanges are very attractive to trading firms, however we would always advise caution when approaching emerging markets. Turkey, like all emerging economies, is particularly susceptible to wider influences – there is no avoiding sudden downturns as proven by the events this summer. That said, there are still many reasons why Istanbul’s exchange offers investors a strategic advantage and with a measured plan supported by the appropriate market access technology, Istanbul could be holding the investment opportunities you’ve been searching for all this time.

Miffed with MiFID

Wed, 16 Sep 2015 10:23:16 +0000

BATS auctions off the block problem

Fri, 11 Sep 2015 11:38:39 +0000

This article was originally published at the Fidessa blog, and is reproduced here with permission.

By Steve Grob

Cloud and Microservices in Banking and Finance

Mon, 07 Sep 2015 16:33:41 +0000

In this Financial Markets Insights video, John Marks of Adaptive Consulting, Alex Lashford of Cake Solutions and Ray Bricknell of Behind Every Cloud, speak to Mike O'Hara about how firms operating in financial markets can reap the benefits of the cloud, particularly when they make use of microservices technology

http://www.weareadaptive.com
http://www.cakesolutions.net
http://www.behindeverycloud.co.uk
http://therealizationgroup.com

"There Can Be No Great Accomplishment Without Risk"

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 09:25:45 +0000

Why The OTC Markets Need a New Approach to Software Development

Tue, 25 Aug 2015 12:59:11 +0000

As regulatory initiatives around the world drive today’s Over-the Counter (OTC) markets towards an ever more connected, more electronic trading model, firms operating in the space are having to rapidly adapt and evolve.

Are your mobile apps up to the test?

Fri, 14 Aug 2015 14:45:00 +0000

A Hybrid Approach to Market Data Feed Handling

Tue, 21 Jul 2015 09:19:10 +0000

In the highly inter-connected electronic trading landscape that underpins today’s financial markets, participants increasingly need to source market data from multiple trading venues reliably, consistently and at high speed. And, in the drive to satisfy their own and their clients’ requirements, firms face a number of choices regarding which technology platforms and architectures they should adopt to effectively acquire and process that data.

Click here to download this Celoxica White Paper

How financial firms can reap the benefits of the cloud

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 07:52:00 +0000

On 2nd July 2015, The Realization Group, together with Adaptive Consulting, hosted a round table based on the recent Financial Markets Insights report entitled “Adventures in the Cloud – From Capex to Opex & Beyond”. Mike O’Hara of The Realization Group facilitated a discussion about both the opportunities and the challenges for financial firms looking to embrace cloud and in particular, emerging microservices technology.

Is FIX Moving to the Cloud? (Video)

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 20:34:53 +0000

In this Financial Markets Insights video, Jim Timmins of FIX Flyer, Toby Corbalis of Bridline and Robert Bath of Digital Realty, speak to Mike O'Hara about how elements of the FIX (Financial Information Exchange) Protocol are moving towards a more cloud-based delivery model.

http://www.fixflyer.com/
http://www.digitalrealty.co.uk/
http://therealizationgroup.com

Adventures in the Cloud: From Capex to Opex & Beyond

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 15:45:00 +0000

Is FIX Moving to the Cloud?

Tue, 16 Jun 2015 13:28:00 +0000

Making waves: breaking down barriers with ultrafast networks

Fri, 15 May 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Cleared for launch: A new era for OTC derivatives

Mon, 11 May 2015 11:09:00 +0000

Subscription Pricing in European Equities Trading

Thu, 07 May 2015 08:22:33 +0000

In this Financial Markets Insights video, Alasdair Haynes, CEO of Aquis Exchange, discusses with Mike O'Hara of The Realization Group why there was a need for a new pan-European equities exchange, and how Aquis's subscription pricing model is disrupting the status quo.

http://www.aquis.eu
http://www.therealizationgroup.com

Unravelling the FIX tangle

Thu, 07 May 2015 08:01:48 +0000

In this Financial Markets Insights video, Brandon deCoster, Head of Product Management at FIX Flyer LLC, discusses with Mike O'Hara of The Realization Group how the FIX (Financial Information Exchange) protocol is currently implemented across the industry, looking at how connectivity can be streamlined through greater use of standardisation, automation and managed services.

http://www.fixflyer.com
http://www.therealizationgroup.com

NPLTime ® - certified time for the financial sector

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 14:10:18 +0000

With MiFID II due to be in place within two years, NPL and ICE have carried out a proof-of-concept to assess the NPLTime^® service for its suitability for the impending regulations.

Precision timekeeping underpins the modern world. Applications from telecommunications to satellite navigation, surveying and transport systems are underpinned by precise timing, and to enable these systems to operate correctly the same stable and accurate reference time scale must be in use everywhere.

There is no single master clock for the world - the consequences of it failing would be far too severe. Instead, the international time reference is maintained by 70 time laboratories around the world and is based on the average of some 400 atomic clocks. That diversity provides both resilience (the loss of a single clock or even a national time laboratory would have little effect) and accessibility (each major industrial nation contributes to the timescale, and hence has direct access to atomic time).

Download the White Paper

The case for a common symbology: ideal and practical

Tue, 31 Mar 2015 14:03:04 +0000

Market participants are demanding consistency in symbology (naming convention) to minimise investor confusion, promote stability and mitigate operational risks. Internally they need to reduce the costs that stem from duplication of support for multiple vendor symbologies. Currently each exchange has its own data format and symbology, which means that each data feed must be normalised, renamed and consolidated before the data can actually be used. Through the use of symbology users navigate the data available on a specific instrument. Market data vendors provide their own conventions which allow users to cut across individual exchange symbologies but nevertheless are not compatible.

Nirvana for trading firms has been a common symbology to ease navigation between market centres and data vendors, providing a better experience for investors whilst reducing back-office complexities. The market has for some time been crying out for a solution which allows them to integrate data from a myriad of sources seamlessly with trading applications, allowing new content to be added quickly whilst eliminating the difficulty in managing symbology changes and feed updates.

The Thomson Reuters RICs have since their inception been viewed as being by and large intuitive (for most asset classes) and logical, and these characteristics have been the acid test for symbology.

This report will show that the RIC is currently the best contender for achieving a common symbology.

Click here to download a pdf of this white paper from SR Labs

Frontloading and the Clearing Obligation

Mon, 30 Mar 2015 15:54:26 +0000

In this Financial Markets Insights video, Hirander Misra of GMEX, Luke Hickmore of Aberdeen Asset Management, Lee McCormack of Nomura and Byron Baldwin of Eurex Clearing, speak to Mike O'Hara about the new Clearing Obligation under EMIR, and how the buy-side in particular will be affected by the frontloading of OTC derivatives trades.

http://gmex-group.com
http://nomura.com
http://eurexchange.com
http://aberdeen-asset.com

The UI Technology Mess

Fri, 13 Mar 2015 12:46:00 +0000