THEME COVER


FOCAL POINT

Latency! Speed! Just because early Porsches share a lot of their design elements with the Volkswagen, it does not mean that Porsches’ are slow. And just as the Volkswagen that is built as a family car cannot be expected to work wonders on the race track, the engines of FIX Protocol designed a decade ago to do one job cannot be expected to lead the field when asked to perform an almost entirely different one, argues Kevin Houston, FPL Global Technical Committee Co-chair.


Prudential Asset Management’s Richard Coulstock shares his thoughts on how ‘change’ , being the only constant, brings with it the opportunity for the buy-side desk to gain competitive advantage especially in Asia.


FIX Algorithmic Trading Definition Language is an emerging standard that allows for the expression of electronic trading strategies in relatively simple XML format. Portware’s Witold Sames explains to successfully implement FIXatdl; you’ll need some careful planning and resources.


With the official release of FIXatdl taking place in Spring 2010, State Street Global Advisors’ Zoltan Feledy gives a head start on the standard.



INSIGHT

Dark pools are nothing new; they are just finding their feet in Asia’s rugged exchange landscape. Credit Suisse’s James Rae, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Mark Wheatley, Chi-X’s Rob Rooks, Liquidnet’s Greg Henry, Singapore Stock Exchange’s Bob Caisley, ITG’s Perry Pritchard and BlocSec’s Christian Chan discuss.


At the FPL Americas Conference 2009, Bill Hebert, FPL Americas Education and Marketing Committee Co-chair moderated a panel of experts on “Latency limbo: How low can you get?” Two of the panelists, FlexTrade System’s Vijay Kedia and Corvil’s Donal Byrne, communicate their insights in response to Bill Hebert’s questions.


The controversy around naked sponsorship for high-frequency traders; key concerns with latency and the main drivers for DMA, outside of latency. Putting these in context to low latency FIX connection and the focus of the broker entering this space. Fidessa’s David Polen shares his insights.



OPINION

FPL asks a panel of London- based experts for their thoughts on the good, bad and ugly of high frequency trading.


Competition between Exchanges will bring about better transparency. Newedge’s Guillaume Roux-Chabert, shares his opinions in context to how the recent crisis, the regulatory framework, the cost-cutting and the technology, make an impact on the derivatives industry.


Counterparty risk theory and practice have been evolving over the last decade; the recent market crisis has brought it heightened focus. The current best practice which is a culmination of various innovations is the result of a long evolutionary process according to Quantifi’s David Kelly.



UPDATE

Direct Market Access (DMA) significantly reduces order-time, supports algo and block trading and enables the buy-side to connect directly to the FIX DMA Gateway. Bursa Malaysia recently announced their launch of DMA for Equities and we bring you their update on DMA and Sponsored Access.


Oxera, one of Europe’s leading independent economic consultancies released a study titled, “The Benefits of the FIX Protocol”. This study attests the many benefits of FIX Protocol, explains Daniella Baker, FPL Marketing and Communications Manager of FIX Protocol Limited.


ASIC’s Greg Yanco writes how ASIC (The Australian Securities and Investments Commission), as the nation’s capital markets regulator, is looking at how to integrate the experience of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) into its future policy settings.



AMERICAS

John Goeller, Co-chair of the FPL Americas Regional Committee, aptly set the tone for the event in his opening remarks, “We’ve lived through a number of challenging times..and we still have quite a bit of change in front of us.” Sara Brady, the program manager of the conference, Jordan and Jordan gives us a gist of the conference.



EUROPE

A European Commission spokesperson says a review of MIFID is likely in 2010, so what can the financial community feed into this review to make MIFID 2 a better version of its predecessor? Should MIFID 2 be extended to the bond and derivatives markets, given the financial crisis of the past 18 months? We collate thoughts from Nomura’s Andrew Bowley and BT Global Service’s Chris Pickles.



ASIA

Proving the point, the gloves were off at the latest Face2Face event held in Mumbai, early September 2009, with the buy-side, vendors and the exchanges pulling no punches in their assessment of DMA, algorithms, extended trading and competition across the trading venues.


This conversation was initiated by FIXGlobal with almost 200 industry leaders at their recent Face2Face event in Seoul. Credit Suisse’s Jospehine Kim encapsulates the conversation.


China’s insurance sector has experienced robust growth over the past decade. But the industry is not without its challenges. Gao Shong, Head of IT for PICC Asset Management offers FIXGlobal his assessment of the technology issues that must be resolved for the industry to move ahead effectively.



JAPAN

Satoshi Hayakawa, from the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s IT department highlights some of the key features of Arrowhead, The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s next generation trading platform.



LAST WORD