This blog post originally appeared on AsiaEtrading.
Trading in Hong Kong remains a challenging endeavor for global investors. As authorities work to eradicate insider trading, Hong Kong has served as an informal test case for exploring how far the free market ethos can go before it begins to scare off investors. Read more»
By Nasser Khodri, APAC Managing Director for SunGard’s global trading business
Since SGX REACH went live in the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on August 15, the republic’s trading community can look forward to reaping the benefits associated with advanced trading technologies, such as improved performance, higher execution price, enhanced productivity and added services. Read more»
The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange (HKMEx), established to bridge international commodities markets with China, has chosen SunGard to provide its participants with a range of front-to-back office solutions for trading on its markets.
Using SunGard’s market connectivity and trading solutions, exchange members will be able to quickly and effectively commence trading on the exchange through robust, low-latency market access. HKMEx recently received authorization from Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission to provide Automated Trading Services (ATS), and started trading on 18 May 2011.
SunGard’s range of solutions and services are designed to make participation on the exchange even more secure and straightforward. The solutions include: MarketMap, a market data and information services solution; Valdi Market Gateways and Valdi Trader (formerly GL Win) for market connectivity and trading solutions; Stream Clearvision as a middle-office solution; and Stream Ubix and Stream GMI as back-office solutions.
Specifically, Valdi Market Gateways and Valdi Trader will:
In addition to allowing HKMEx members to trade and clear transactions using SunGard technology, this partnership will also allow other brokers around the world to send orders to Exchange members to execute trades through either the SunGard Global Network (SGN) or FIX network.
For more information, please contact Gregory So, North East Asia Regional Sales Director for SunGard: gregory.so@sungard.com
To find out more about HKMEx, please visit www.hkmerc.com
SunGard is accelerating the integration of GL Trade solutions. All SunGard software product lines for trading on global listed markets are now branded under a single name: Valdi. GL Win, for instance, is now called Valdi Trader.
In January 2009 GL Trade became the Global Trading business of SunGard. Since then, the team has been working to integrate our product lines with other SunGard offerings: during 2010, for example, GL Net became part of the expanded SunGard Global Network, which now links a community of over 2000 buy-side firms to more than 500 brokers.
In 2011 SunGard is taking a further important step, and we have brought together all SunGard software product lines for trading on global listed markets under a single brand: Valdi. This means that all GL Stream products will change their names.
This branding change will have no immediate impact on the products or service organization, but will open up new opportunities as SunGard furthers its development work. An important new Valdi product has already been introduced. The Valdi Execution Management System is derived directly from the GL Stream architecture and, extends the functionality offered by the GL Winway workstation for buy-side trading desks. It enables integration of the trading station into the workflow of the asset manager or brokerage firm that uses it, facilitating the management of care order and DMA flows across multiple markets and trading desks.
Your SunGard account manager will of course be pleased to help if you have questions about our move to Valdi. The Valdi pages on SunGard’s website also provide further information.
Valdi Market Access continues to make ground. The latest news comes from Italy, Spain and South Africa and concerns fixed income, equities and derivatives trading.
Italian Multilateral Trading Facility EuroTLX is now available via Valdi Market Access. SunGard’s clients can therefore benefit from Best Execution in Italian fixed income products without having to worry about hardware technology and communication lines.
EuroTLX focuses specifically on fixed income products. Valdi’s ASP access to other Italian fixed-income markets, such as MOT – the fixed income subsidiary of the Borsa Italiana – and Hi-MTF, combined with Valdi smart order routing, means that Best Execution is now a reality for our clients in fixed income, as it is already in equities.
Further Italian news will be coming later in 2010 when IDEM, the Italian derivatives market, becomes available via Valdi Market Access. Spain’s Mercado Español de Futuros Financieros (MEFF) derivatives exchange is also in our plans for H2 2010: this connection will complete the Valdi offering for Spanish markets.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Derivatives Market is another recent Valdi Market Access addition. SunGard has done business in South Africa for many years, and provides the software for the JSE’s ASP-based TALX platform for equity trading. Now the users of TALX will also have ASP access to derivatives products through Valdi.
SunGard provides global connectivity to its Valdi Market Access infrastructure via the SunGard Global Network (see previous blog). With this ASP solution, clients find that IT overheads have practically disappeared: no need to install technical infrastructure or worry about software architecture, and no concerns about physical delivery (telecommunication lines, routers…etc.), SunGard takes care of it all with Valdi Market Access!
A big welcome to Winterflood Securities: the UK-based international securities firm has gone live on the SunGard Global Network (SGN) low-latency market data and order routing service.
Winterflood makes markets in securities all over Europe, and is one of the leading liquidity providers in London, making markets in more UK stocks than any other firm. Winterflood is therefore a valued addition to the SGN community.
Launched in April, SGN was created through the amalgamation of SunGard’s three existing networks: GL Net, with its strong footprint in Europe and Asia; BNET, the US dealer-to dealer network; and of course STN, the US-focused broker/buy-side network. The single SGN network now offers truly global multi-asset liquidity to all.
The community comprises in excess of 500 brokers with access to over 110 markets but, despite its large size, SGN is still growing rapidly. Four other brokers connected shortly before the amalgamation in April, and now Winterflood becomes the first new member of the combined community.
Winterflood has joined SGN to receive order flow from institutions around the world, and is already benefiting from its increased reach. And SGN of course offers much more, with its FIX Network Service, ASP-based trading membership services and low-latency market data provision.
For some time SunGard’s Global Trading has been working with SunGard’s Trading and Wealth Management business teams to find the right technical, commercial and legal way to combine SunGard’s three order routing networks. This has led to the creation of a new brand: SunGard Global Network (SGN).
Alongside GL Net, the two other networks of SunGard are:
Clearly, as long as these three networks and client populations remain separate, we are missing an opportunity to capitalize fully on the ‘network effect’: many authorities claim that the value of a network increases with the square of its number of members. We have had technical connectivity in place between the three networks for some time, and several individual client cross-connections have been made, but larger issues of business process, contracts and regulations had to be worked through before we could fully link up the networks and present them to clients as one.
We have now got though this process and there will be, from 1 June when we launch it via a Press Release, one network – the SunGard Global Network (SGN). This sounds very simple, but there is some complexity in the structure. The Money Market and Funds segments of SGN are regulated businesses in the US, so promotionally and contractually we will keep them separate from the SGN Securities business that will combine GL Net with the STN Securities and BNet networks. SGN Securities will be an (unregulated) broker-neutral order routing and market data network, just as GL Net is today, carrying orders in all asset classes between the buy-and sell-sides, and also of course offering GL Net’s current market data services.
We are aware that the name ‘Securities’ suggests equities to some people. But in fact the term also covers derivative securities, and it will be important to ensure that clients understand the network’s strength in derivatives markets.
The statistics on SGN Securities will be impressive – adding a large number of US-based brokers and buy-side firms to our GL Net numbers. Subject to final checks, we will have:
With our FIX Network Service (see separate PL Buzz article) we also interconnect with all the major FIX and finance industry networks: this is a great all-round connectivity offer.
Before the public launch on 1 June, we will provide details of the business and technical processes necessary to connect current GL Net clients to firms on the ‘ex-STN and BNet’ parts of the network. There will be an announcement to clients a few days ahead of the launch.
Current GL Net prices will continue to apply for our clients, on SGN services. Given the work that we’ve done recently to rationalize these prices, we will therefore have a first-class connectivity offer for all current and new clients.
Look out for further news leading up to 1 June. For further information, contact Philippe Carre philippe.carre@sungard.com or David Morgan david.morgan@sungard.com.
It is becoming progressively more difficult for smaller regional and specialist brokers to compete with their larger rivals in the fragmented European securities marketplace. The legal, operational and technology costs involved in exploiting the new market structure can be prohibitive for all but the largest firms. SunGard unveils a new brand, Valdi Liquidity Solutions, based on a new operating model that tackles these cost barriers head-on and makes it possible for smaller brokers with a strong client service proposition to compete for execution business. Scale is no longer a necessary entry ticket.
The European financial community is witnessing steadily increasing fragmentation of liquidity in the equity markets: for example, over 40% of public-book trading in FTSE 100 stocks now takes place on the major MTFs. As a consequence, pressure is now growing from the buy-side and from regulators for brokers to include these new venues in their Best Execution policies.
Today, this is a European issue, but with Chi-X planning to launch three venues in Asia-Pacific this year it may soon be a more global one.
How to respond?
At SunGard we see the market pressure, and also the complexity and cost involved in multi-venue trading – which have caused many firms to hesitate. This combination is the driver behind Valdi Liquidity Solutions , a service suite that enables extremely cost-effective access to fragmented liquidity. The suite includes hosted market gateways, algorithmic trading and smart order routing services, all managed by SunGard in ASP, and provides a single access point to almost 100 percent of displayed liquidity.
This new approach strips out the operational and technology complexity that is normally involved, and provides unique flexibility in market membership options and commercial terms. Brokerage firms using the Valdi services are therefore able to reduce significantly the costs of managing fragmented liquidity, meaning that scale is no longer necessary for trading success.
More about Valdi Liquidity Solutions
Valdi Liquidity Solutions enable brokers to leverage fully their current client relationships, market memberships and connectivity, and at the same time take advantage of the full range of new possibilities in the fragmented markets. Just as important in current market circumstances, the way in which Valdi Liquidity Solutions are delivered enables firms to avoid much or all of the fixed cost increment that is normally involved in trading new markets.
The Valdi suite centers around the provision of Smart Order Routing capability, hosted and managed as a service, with no restriction or price implications on the number of exchanges and/or MTFs that the broker connects to. Market membership in each case can be the user firm’s own or that of a partner broker. Market memberships can be added wherever this makes business sense, and other firms’ memberships can be leveraged where it doesn’t.
Algorithmic trading capability is also provided via managed services, working closely in conjunction with the Smart Router and triggered by workstation users or in-house trading tools.
How it works
Orders can arrive from the brokerage firm’s clients, via FIX or SunGard trading workstations, or from in-house order management and trading systems. From this point onward in the order flow, the Valdi managed services come into play, accessed via SunGard’s global network. At Valdi’s entry point, trading strategies can be applied using the full range of capabilities of the GL Tactics and Open Tactics algorithmic trading suites.
All orders can then be sent either direct to markets or to the Valdi Smart Order Router for decisions on routing of child orders. The Router’s algorithms are continually optimized by SunGard’s market specialists, and then set for all clients, meaning that full mutualization of infrastructure is possible and cost-effectiveness is maximized. The Smart Router and associated Market Data Aggregator (which delivers the consolidated view of market depth to trading screens and applications) are core service elements.
Orders can then be passed either to SunGard’s ASP trading servers for execution under the user firm’s own name, with pre-trade risk management checks carried out by the high-performance GL Selector module, or – and this is where the Valdi suite’s unique flexibility kicks in – to a partner broker for the markets where the user firm does not hold membership (or where a partner’s higher aggregated volumes can achieve better transaction pricing). Order flow is routed to the partner with low latency via SunGard’s network.
For the cases where the user firm’s own memberships are used, SunGard offers managed and secured connectivity to all equities exchanges in Western Europe, all the significant pan-European MTFs and also several dark pools.
Valdi Liquidity Solutions are designed to make the move to full participation in the new European liquidity landscape straightforward and cost-effective. Brokers can leverage the services to improve client satisfaction, gain a new competitive edge and retain full flexibility to cope with further market evolution, while avoiding the large fixed investments that these normally require.
To find out more about SunGard’s suite of global electronic trading solutions, please visit www.sungard.com/globalelectronictrading
