It is a great honor for Trading Technologies’ X_TRADER to be named “Best Buy-Side Commodities Trading Platform” in this year’s Buy-Side Technology Awards. The award, which recognizes “the leading technologies and vendors in their area of expertise, through an auditable and transparent methodology underpinned by the input and experience of six judges,” was announced at the sixth annual Buy-Side Technology Awards in London on Friday.
The 2012 award is a significant accolade for TT in a period of increased agitation and uncertainty for our industry. That our platform was chosen from a large field of worthy competitors is deeply satisfying to all of us at TT.
At the core of our philosophy is the simple idea that everything we do, from providing exchange connectivity and hosting services to designing world-class algorithmic design tools, centers on the end user. Although our system addresses the needs of many constituents, including regulators, exchange operators and broker trading and operations staff, it is ultimately the buy-side end user who dictates whether we have succeeded. And with buy-side users facing new regulatory and market hurdles, they need an execution platform that provides superior performance and dependability as well as compliance with existing and emerging regulatory requirements.
Why Go Out on a Limb?
Because, according to Will Rogers, that’s where the fruit is. The futures industry exists because of risk, and unlike “capital markets,” where securities are issued and sold to generate business capital, futures are primarily about risk mitigation. But while you can hedge oil consumption or metals prices, certain forms of risk are harder to identify and mitigate.
Take, for example, the risks inherent in rapidly evolving regulatory requirements. With new regulation spanning a variety of derivatives and trading operations, today’s buy-side user faces a growing wave of change that makes forecasting near-term events, let alone the distant future, increasingly difficult. With the Republican presidential candidate vowing to repeal Dodd-Frank, there is certainly a lot that remains up in the air.
Regulatory change is moving at such a rapid pace that some observers speak of “regulatory arbitrage” as a potential response to ambiguous or overreaching legislation. Derivatives trading has never been simple, but the onslaught of new challenges overlaid on market participants adds even more complexity to the business.
Then there are the debacles. Things that were simply given in the past, for example, thinking of established brokers and customer funds as the trading equivalent of bedrock, have gone out the window, and the buy-side must now hedge previously unthinkable scenarios. Who could have predicted established brokers such as MF Global and Peregrine would disappear virtually overnight?
In light of the post-crisis climate, the need for trading system stability and flexibility has never been greater. More than ever, buy-side traders are demanding reliable, flexible and compliant trading capabilities to keep up with an ever-changing landscape.
In awarding the 2012 Buy-Side Technology award to TT, the judges had much to commend their decision. For buy-side firms needing to run their derivatives book while safeguarding both their assets and their reputation, our clients tell us the TT platform is second to none. TT’s comprehensive risk controls provide system-wide exposure and P&L limits to ensure that all orders are validated and managed against pre-trade limits in real time without exception, and without compromise to our microsecond-level performance. The Synthetic Strategy Engine allows buy-side traders to create broker- and exchange-neutral synthetic orders for finely tailored execution management, and our new ADL™ allows them to build proprietary alpha-seeking and execution algos that are also broker neutral. The TT FIX Adapter provides a robust means of integrating third-party order-management and middle-office systems with TT, and allows buy-side portfolio managers to stage orders directly from their OMS to TT’s X_TRADER for immediate execution or care order handling.
We Live in Interesting Times
Old curses of questionable attribution aside, we do in fact live in a much-changing world. Markets, products and rules now evolve at a dizzying pace. TT recognizes that buy-side traders are facing more challenges, and to this end we continue to develop flexible and trustworthy capabilities for buy-side traders worldwide. We are grateful to have been selected to receive this year’s award from Buy-Side Technology, and remain ever-committed to providing superior capabilities to our buy-side end users.