algorithmic trading
Digital asset exchange Bitfinex, and Koine, a digital asset custody provider, have launched an institutionally oriented post-trade service, enabling investors to mitigate counterparty risk and the use of private keys in the clearing and settlement of cryptocurrencies. Koine customers gain access to a post trade solution from a business licensed by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, a service specifically designed for […]
The FICC Markets Standards Board (FMSB) has published the first in a series of papers called Spotlight Reviews, which looks at emerging themes and challenges in algorithmic trading and machine learning. The series will consider issues of FICC market structure and the impact of regulatory and technological change on the fairness and effectiveness of wholesale […]
In an open letter to Global FX Committee (GFXC) chair Guy Debelle, the head of the Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS) Markets Committee, Jacqueline Loh, has called for greater adoption of the FX Global Code, especially amongst asset managers. Ahead of the first three-year review of the Code, the letter also urges the GFXC to […]
Ian Daniels, executive director, head of e-FX distribution, EMEA, at Nomura, talks about algorithmic trading trends in the FX market.
Profit & Loss: Since you joined Nomura, you’ve been working on developing the bank’s algo offering, what are the latest developments there?
Ian Daniels: Our algos are now live on Bloomberg and will soon be live on a number of other major third party venues. I think that one of the benefits of being a later entrant into this space is that you have the experience of previous roll-outs to draw upon. So we knew that access to liquidity and the customisability of our algos would be important characteristics for our clients and that’s why we created algos that enable clients to execute in a default mode or that can be tailored to meet their specific needs.
DeVere Group has founded the DeVere Digital Asset Funds, something it says is “a suite” of digital currency solutions for experienced investors, in association with Dalma Capital Management, a hedge fund manager in the Dubai International Financial Centre. The firm has revealed that its strategy will be largely arbitrage-based, as it has identified “durable inefficiencies” across trading venues in cryptocurrency markets that it can exploit using algorithmic trading.
The launch was announced the day after Bitcoin reached its 10th anniversary.
BNP Paribas has seen a raft of departures from it’s FX algo team over the past few months.
Profit & Loss understands that in London Silviu Vlasceanu, a senior quantitative analyst, Farzana Nanji, who worked in FX automated client execution, Tom Appleton, the head of FX algo execution, Ismail Zekhnini, an e-FX algo trader and Shameer Subedar, who worked within the e-FX algo team developing agency based algos, have all left the bank. In addition, sources indicate that in Singapore, Ashvin Parkash, head of e-distribution for Asia who was part of the same team, has also left BNP Paribas.
Automation is important in markets, it brings valuable efficiencies and helps the financial markets industry advance – it’s what keeps us moving forward. It is not, however, the be all and end all, and while the FX spot market largely exists in an automated environment, firms should not be fooled into thinking they don’t need well-qualified and astute humans in key roles – one of them spot trading – for the latter role in particular, provides a crucial sanity check.
Justin Slaughter, a partner at Mercury Strategies, warns that US regulators are examining if they need to take further action around algorithmic trading.
Talking about how the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has not necessarily given up on “Reg AT”, which included a controversial provision that trading firms hand over potentially proprietary source code related to trading to the regulator, Slaughter highlighted broader questions about what data regulators should have access to.
“What should the government do to make sure that we have access in an emergency to critical data but not give it so much access that we’re then in danger of leaking our critical proprietary knowledge?” he says.
In a speech on Friday, Chris Salmon, executive director, Markets, at the Bank of England, discussed the changing market microstructure, in particular the advent of “fast markets” and stressed it was “incumbent” upon authorities to keep up.
Salmon highlighted three recent flash events in financial markets, the equities market flash crash of 2010, the US Treasuries flash rally in 2014 and last year’s Cable flash crash and while he observed that sharp moves in asset prices are nothing new, “the speed, and the typical near-total reversal” is new.
Pragma Securities has expanded its algorithmic trading platform, Pragma360, to include NDF products.
While the latest Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey in 2016 showed that spot FX trading was down 19% compared to three years previous, it also showed that the NDF market grew by 5.3% over the same time period.
The growth of the NDF market, as well as the fact that these products increasingly trade electronically, is what prompted Pragma to start offering algorithmic tools for trading them, Curtis Pfeiffer, chief business officer at Pragma, tells Profit & Loss.
