Featured Articles:

In Finance Jobs, New York's Loss Is Chicago's Gain

Gilded resumes that never traveled west of the Hudson River are now bound for Lake Michigan, as Chicago investment houses are recruiting amid mass layoffs on Wall Street.
Chicago Tribune - August 2008

Automated Trading

Trading firms need to move fast to take advantage of price anomalies, and automated trading technology can make it happen, solution provider Trading Technologies explains.
Arabian Banking & Finance - May 2008

Analysis: Trading Platforms - Opening up the Floor

Middle Eastern trading venues are becoming more important on a global scale. Dave Setters squares up to some of the issues at stake and takes a look at the technology powering these markets.
International Banking Systems Journal - Spring 2008

March to the Algorithm

Recent years have seen a surge in the growth of algorithmic trading, with more trades executed through automated systems each year. The availability of global order routing platforms is stimulating an increase in automated cross-market trading. Although average fill sizes are getting smaller, the number of filled orders is increasing dramatically. The highly active global markets continue to attract more participants, including hedge funds, which have embraced and are continuing to use automated trading at a growing rate. Algorithmic trading allows hedge funds to model, test and deploy highly complex quantitative strategies that would be impossible to execute manually.
Fund Alternatives Intelligence Magazine - December 2007

Best Buy-Side Commodities Trading Platform: Trading Technologies' X_TRADER®

The commodities trading landscape is, according to certain analysts, likely to garner significant buy-side attention during 2008, especially from the more adventurous buy-side firms and hedge funds. Unlike a number of other categories in this year's awards, there is only a handful of true commodities trading platforms available to buy-side players, and even fewer independent, third-party platforms.
Buy-Side Technology - December 2007

Bonjour Genéve

Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) has opened a new sales office in Geneva, Switzerland. Trading Technologies develops high-performance trading software for derivatives professionals, including the world's premier exchanges, money-center banks, proprietary traders, securities brokers, Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs), hedge funds and other trading institutions.
Swiss Derivatives Review - Spring 2007

Electronic Grain Trading Arrives

In 1851, the earliest "forward" contract for 3,000 bushels of corn was recorded at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Billions of futures contracts later in August of 2006, the CBOT launched electronic side-by-side trading of its agricultural futures complex during daytime hours.
Grain & Feed Marketing - Winter 2006

The Impact of Commodity Electronification on Buy-Side Alpha Generation

The rapid 'electronification' of investment markets is broadening trading opportunities. As buy-side traders embrace a multi-asset approach, more funds have been moving into commodities. Screenbased trading of energies and grains is regularly setting monthly exchange volume records, in part because of increased buy-side participation. Many of these companies are seeking the volatility in these vibrant markets to generate alpha – excess returns attributable to a manager. This paper explores the appeal of these products and will look at some of the innovative technologies that are helping buy-side traders leverage these attractive and growing markets.
Commodities Now - December 2006

TT Gets Goldman on Board in European Contract Extension

Trading Technologies (TT) has extended its existing US software license agreement with Goldman Sachs to distribute TT’s software to its European and Asian clients.
FO Week - August 14, 2006

Trading CBOT Ag Products on X_TRADER® 7 from Trading Technologies

The historic launch of side-by-side electronic trading of the Chicago Board of Trade's agricultural products during daytime trading hours is slated to begin next week on August 1. Trading Technologies' (TT's) new X_TRADER 7 platform is well equipped to help facilitate the transition.
John Lothian: Special Report - July 26, 2006

Trading Technologies' X_TRADER® 7:
New Enhancements to Trading Platform Include Top-End Charting Package

Trading Technologies' X_TRADER, the benchmark front end trading platform for derivatives traders, has recently been upgraded with the release in January of X_TRADER® 7 and X_STUDY™. This entirely new platform enjoys noticeable improvements on its forerunner, X_TRADER 6 including new in-depth charting capabilities and a reflex-fast application with a patented static display of prices and market depth that redefines the way traders are looking at the market.
The Technical Analyst - July/August 2006

The New Energy Marketplace

While the migration of futures trading from the pits to the screen over the past several years has been quite dramatic, the over-the-counter (OTC) energy market has undergone a similarly dramatic, if less widely noted, transformation of its own.
Petroleum Review - June 2006

Combining Classical Technical Analysis with CVD

The Cumulative Volume Delta (TT CVD™) indicator displays the running difference between volume traded on the ask (buying pressure) and volume traded on the bid (selling pressure). TT CVD is designed to highlight whether market participants are accumulating a market or unloading it.
Active Trader - May 2006

X_TRADER Leads the World

Trading Technologies' roots can be traced back to Frankfurt in the mid-1990s - an era characterised by the emergence of new technologies that formed the backbone of electronic trading as we know it today. Since then, the firm has relocated and grown into one of the premier providers of e-trading technology and related services.
First published in Hedge Fund & Investment Technology - February 2006
© 2006 Incisive Financial Publishing. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

ISVs & the Energy Market

As any market matures, trading tends to move away from customized, bilateral deals and opaque pricing toward standardized contracts, where price and quantity are the only variables. Maturity also brings standard clearing arrangements, eliminating counterparty risk and opening the market to new participants. Over the past few years, the over-the-counter (OTC) energy market has been making dramatic strides in those directions, with a helping hand from standardized contracts, transcurrent pricing and exchange clearing through NYMEX and the ICE.
First appeared in The Desk - January 6, 2006
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Scudder Publishing Group, LLC. Copyright 2006.

TT Broadens Ambitions with X_TRADER upgrade

Trading Technologies (TT) has set forward its plans to expand the base of products and trading strategies it caters for following the 3 January launch of version seven of its X_TRADER trading platform.
FO Week - January 9, 2006

Deutsche Bank Signs Global License for TT Dealing System

Germany's Deutsche Bank has acquired a global license for Chicago-based Trading Technologies (TT) front-end dealing technology which it will distribute to its traders and customers.
Finextra - September 28, 2005

TT Introduces Specialist STIR Tools

ISV Trading Technologies (TT) has launched an order entry plugin for its X_TRADER Pro front-end which will add new functionality, including tools specifically for short-term interest rate (STIR) traders.
FO Week - September 26, 2005

MX accesses non-Canadian prop traders with new platform

The Montréal Exchange launched trading on X_TRADER, Trading Technologies International's order entry platform, last week, which is likely to boost the exchange's order flow from new foreign participants. MX is Canada's only derivatives exchange and is the first to use X_TRADER via the Financial Information eXchange (FIX) Protocol.
Wall Street Letter - June 13, 2005

TT's Settlement With Patsystems Is Only Good News For Some

Trading Technologies, the trading software provider that has sued several firms over its "MD Trader" patent, recently settled a suit against Patsystems, its biggest direct competitor in the ISV (independent software vendor) market. So far, TT has brought suits only against trading firms that use "ladder display" screens TT believes are similar to its MD Trader screen.
Securities Week - May 30, 2005

Eye of the Storm

Steve Borsand has been Trading Technologies (TT)'s vice president, intellectual property for three years. His remit at the firm includes TT's much-discussed software patents and the subsequent litigation based on them. In an exclusive interview, he spoke to FO Week's Jim Kharouf about patents, litigation and what he believes are misperceptions regarding TT.
FO Week - April 4, 2005
Click here for eight articles that explain TT's patent situation.

TT Against the World

Harris Brumfield controls a commodities-trading software empire. Now he's laying it all on the line. The stakes: Only the future of electronic trading.
Trader Monthly - April/May 2005
Click here for eight articles that explain TT's patent situation.

Harris Brumfield Makes an Offer

Since being awarded two patents for its MD Trader depth of market software in August, Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Trading Technologies (TT) has taken a strategic approach to defending its intellectual property. TT has a patent infringement suit pending against eSpeed and has filed and settled other infringement suits.
Futures - March 2005
Click here for eight articles that explain TT's patent situation.

Brumfield Defends TT's Controversial Fee Proposal

Harris Brumfield, chief executive of Chicago-based vendor Trading Technologies (TT), has defended his company's radical proposal that four of the leading derivatives exchanges pay TT a fee of 2.5 cents per trade, forever, in exchange for TT giving all its intellectual property to the industry. "This is merely a proposal that we cannot make the exchanges do. If we are right and the business proposal makes sense for all involved, they will do it," Brumfield told Risk. "If we are wrong, they will not," he adds.
Risk - February 2005
Click here for eight articles that explain TT's patent situation.

Judge Backs Trading Technologies Bid on Patent Case

A Federal judge this week supported software developer Trading Technologies Inc.'s bid to stop electronic bond dealer eSpeed Inc. from using computer trading programs that TT says infringes on patents, but he stopped short of issuing an injunction. Senior Judge James Moran declined to issue a preliminary injunction against eSpeed only because TT could not show evidence of "irreparable harm" at this point. However, if eSpeed takes on Trading Technologies in the marketplace the court "will have to reconsider its present belief that there has not been a sufficient showing of irreparable harm," Moran said in the Feb. 9 ruling, which was obtained by Reuters on Friday.
Reuters - February 11, 2005

Patent Power: FI Interviews Harris Brumfield on His Patent Plan

Trading Technologies' Dec. 15 open letter to the futures industry put forth Harris Brumfield's new business model for TT. The industry has been buzzing since the Aug. 12 announcement that TT had been awarded two patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its MD (Market Depth) Trader concept and subsequently earned two patents from the U.K. Patent Office in November. With 80 more patents waiting in the wings, different players in the industry are trying to sort out what impact this news will have on their business. In his "manifesto," Brumfield proposes to give all TT's current and future intellectual property to the industry for free if the exchanges will pay TT 2.5 cents on every trade-permanently. Brumfield's proposal is conditional on permanent, level access to the participating exchange. If the exchanges don't buy into this, Brumfield says, TT will continue to go after patent infringements at brokerage firms, other ISVs and trading shops, charging a rate significantly higher than the 2.5 cent deal he is proposing to the exchanges. Brumfield agreed to address with FI some of the questions raised by his manifesto. (The open letter is posted here.)
Futures Industry - January/February 2005
Click here for eight articles that explain TT's patent situation.

Comes the Reformation

Onetime pit trader Harris Brumfield was raised as a Catholic. But today he's being called the "Martin Luther of the futures industry." His heretical idea is to add megatonnage to the explosion of electronic trades by hooking up just about anyone who wants to trade directly via the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, Eurex and Euronext.Liffe, a group responsible for a combined volume of 2.8 billion futures and futures options contracts last year. Why, he asks, shouldn't chemical or fertilizer companies, long on the sidelines of the world's trading pits, easily buy and sell contracts to manage risk, much as farmers do? Equal access, Brumfield argues, will only create more liquidity, benefiting everyone. To that end, he wants to offer free or heavily discounted software, linking traders to the exchanges, to anyone.
Forbes - January 31, 2005

Chicago Magazine Names Trading Technologies #3 Best Place to Work in Chicago Area

Can Froot Loops buy love? Perhaps. At this fast-growing developer and marketer of cutting edge software for futures traders, employees rave about the daily free breakfast and snacks: more than 20 kinds of cereal, as well as Pop-Tarts, bagels, muffins, fresh fruit, espresso, and soda pop. For employees working past 6:30, the company springs for dinner as well.
Chicago - October 2004

Chicago Magazine Names Trading Technologies Third Best Place to Work in Chicago

Trading Technologies, one of the most widely used ISVs in the futures industry, was named the third best company to work for in Chicago by Chicago magazine, the largest city monthly magazine in the U.S.
Securities Week - September 20, 2004

At Some Companies, Worker Satisfaction Isn't Just a Frill

Companies in heavy hiring modes often beef up their perks and benefits, yet many small businesses feel they can't afford to. Then there's Trading Technologies International, Inc., with 30 new positions to fill and a tradition of treating employees lavishly.
Chicago Tribune - September 13, 2004

EXCLUSIVE Special Report by John Lothian

One of the aspects of electronic trading that helps level the playing field for all traders is the availability and transparency of the depth of market. The popular display of those bids and offers with corresponding volumes in a vertical (or horizontal) static ladder display format on a trading system has been patented in the United States by a leading trader and one-time executives of a Chicago-based Independent Software Vendor. Similar patents have also been applied for around the world.
John Lothian Newsletter - August 12, 2004
Click here for eight articles that explain TT's patent situation.

TT's Navigator Smart Order Routing Tool Could Help Trades Flow to Challenger Exchanges

Trading Technologies has developed a new piece of software that makes it easier and faster to route trades to the exchange with the best price.
Securities Week - June 21, 2004

Trading Ability Expands

Chicago-based Trading Technologies International, Inc. is an independent software vendor that makes what has become the standard for futures traders who buy and sell electronically.
Chicago Tribune - June 18, 2004

TT Will be First ISV to Offer Trading in ICE-IPE Energy Products

Energy trading has been slow to go electronic, but Trading Technologies believes it will help speed up that move.
Securities Week - March 29, 2004

Software Vendors Globalise Pit

When Eurex, the world's largest derivatives exchange, teamed up late last year with a software company as part of the launch of its new US futures exchange, few outside the industry had heard of it. But Trading Technologies (TT) and others like it are starting to emerge alongside the exchanges themselves as important players in the global derivatives business.
Financial Times - March 3, 2004

Harris Brumfield: Pit Trader Gets Wired

Harris Brumfield, a pit trader turned screen trader turned technology entrepreneur, talks about pushing the volume envelope and the future of electronic trading.
ActiveTrader - December 2003

Trading Technologies One of Fastest Growing Tech Companies Fourth Year in a Row

Trading Technologies, a supplier of trading software to derivatives professionals, was named one of Chicagoland's 50 fastest-growing technology companies by Deloitte & Touche for its fourth year in a row last week.
Securities Week - November 17, 2003

40 Under 40: Chicago's Rising Stars

Profiles of 40 of Chicago's rising business stars under the age of 40. List includes Harris Brumfield, CEO, Trading Technologies.
Crain's Chicago Business - November 3, 2003

TT Expands to Asia and Beyond

Trading Technologies (TT) announced the opening of a new office in Sydney last week and said it is seeing profitable growth in 2003.
FO Week - August 11, 2003

Twist & Route: Order Routing ISVs Evolve with the Market

..."There are a few key players now that seem well positioned," says [Bill] Sexton [chief operating officer for Refco]. "They seem to have found their niche in serving different customer bases."
Futures Industry - July/August 2003

Entrepreneur's Bet is a Link to Futures

With a new diploma from Mississippi State University in 1986, Harris Brumfield thought he'd try his version of graduate school and learn how to be a blackjack dealer in Lake Tahoe. He applied too late, however, so a hometown buddy up north, offering a couch to sleep on, suggested an alternate casino: the Chicago Board of Trade (CBT).
Crain's Chicago Business - July 21, 2003

Brumfield Takes the Reins at TT

In 17 years, Harris Brumfield, Trading Technologies' CEO, has gone from running on the floor at the Chicago Board of Trade to running a big-time trading software corporation.
Futures - April 2003

Trading Technologies First ISV to Come Out Ahead

Trading Technologies had a fully profitable quarter in the last three months of 2002, pushing ahead of its competitors in the field, who have yet to see a profit.
Securities Week - January 27, 2003