SIFMA Trade Show items from Automated Trader

Welcome to Automated Trader's SIFMA coverage!

As one of the biggest trade shows in the calendar, SIFMA demands live coverage - so of course Automated Trader provides it. Product launches, partnership announcements - and who has just opened the bar...

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• SIFMA: Final wrapPosted: 15-06-2008 19:43:55 UK London time x

  Before he staggered off to the airport to catch a plane to Dubai (where he is covering TradeTech Middle East for us) Our Man at SIFMA took a few moments away from the bar to give us his overall impressions of the show:

  

  David Clayden, US Director of Operations, Automated Trader:

  "There may be talk of recession in the US, but that doesn’t seem to be dampening people’s desire to stay abreast of all the latest and best in financial technology – SIFMA was packed. I was told that 5000 delegates attended on the first day of the show and probably 7000 on the second. I can certainly believe it, because for long periods you simply couldn’t get near some stands because the crush was so great.

  Over the three days of the show I managed to talk to about seventy delegates. A couple of very strong themes emerged from the conversations. It was clear that people’s expectations had changed since last year’s show. Then everybody was talking about how to be on the cutting edge as regards reducing latency. This year the focus was much more on predictability and simplicity. People were looking for solutions that were quick to implement but above all were low-risk. They were telling me that they could live without shaving that last microsecond if it came at the cost of variability. If something was fractionally slower but delivered the same solid performance day in day out then that was just fine.

  That more risk averse approach also fed into another theme that we have also been hearing a lot about from Automated Trader readers in recent months; the importance of real partnerships. A lot of the buyside are getting very cynical about partnerships between technology vendors and/or brokers that don’t go much further than the initial press release. In these less certain times if a buyside firm is buying a solution that involves a partnership, they are really kicking the tyres to see how deep that partnership really runs. If they suspect window dressing they just walk away, as they don’t want even the faintest risk of an implementation that might become a buck passing contest.

  I saw the flip side of this on the second day of the show in a meeting with KX Systems and Intel. It was quickly obvious that this was definitely not a “press release relationship”. A lot of sharing of pre-production proprietary information was going on and both parties clearly had a remarkably detailed and low level grasp of each other’s technology. From the end user’s perspective that has to mean less risk of things going awry in a production environment.

  All told, a great show – but SIFMA may like to think about keeping an eye on the “construction cam” on the NY Giants web site when planning the venue for next year?"
• SIFMA: Low power tradingPosted: 11-06-2008 22:31:08 UK London time

  3.25pm EST: A growing problem in a lot of datacentres is getting a large enough power allowance to your racks. In some cases, the short amperage problem is so bad that firms are leasing a 42U rack and are barely able to half fill it.

  No wonder Terry Hulett VP of engineering at NetEffect (on right) and his colleague are smiling. NetEffect's 10 gigabit Ethernet card running flat out uses no more than 8 watts - versus 20-24 watts for most of their competitors.

  That's what we like to see - technology companies doing their bit to avert global warming... 

   

  

   
• SIFMA: Pigs might flyPosted: 11-06-2008 21:46:11 UK London time

  3.07pm EST: The flying pig represents the probability that our US Director of Operations is actually concentrating on his job at SIFMA...

   

  

   

  ...which he clearly isn't:

  
• SIFMA: FNET expands product scope and geographyPosted: 11-06-2008 17:54:05 UK London time

  9.55am EST: Automated Trader's David Clayden caught up with Mark Fields, FTEN's Director of Business Development and asked about the company's plans for the rest of 2008. From out of the gloom (we're going to have to buy Clayden a camera with a flash gun) Mark (he's the one on the right in the pic) tells all:
• SIFMA: So what does it do?Posted: 11-06-2008 17:16:12 UK London time

  9.31am EST: David Clayden, Automated Trader's Director of US Operations asks Fred Rosenstein of Acquire Media about NewsEdge's capabilities. Fred tells him:

  

  Fred Rosenstein, Acquire Media: “NewsEdge does real time news filtering on, among others, keywords, ticker symbols, metadata, news codes and industry codes. It can also provide news feeds into browser applications, algorithmic trading systems and trading platforms.”
• SIFMA: Party, party, partyPosted: 11-06-2008 09:55:07 UK London time
  

  7.59pm EST: SunGard rolls out the red carpet for a fantastic party at the Blue Fin restaurant in Times Square The drinks are flowing and the delicious sushi and Kobe beef keep coming as several hundred 'SIFMA-ores' party the night away. Many thanks SunGard!
• SIFMA: Busy, busy, busy - Part 2Posted: 11-06-2008 09:45:11 UK London time
  

  4.30pm EST: No shortage of activity on the BT Global Financial Services stand...
  
• SIFMA: StreambasePosted: 11-06-2008 00:29:29 UK London time
  

  3.45pm EST: Justin Fry, VP marketing and Eddie Galvez, chief architect of Streambase with latest release v6 of streambase
• SIFMA: Another reason to wear shadesPosted: 10-06-2008 19:44:19 UK London time
  

  12.44pm EST: If you weren't already wearing shades because of the weather, you'd need them for the Tervela stand anyway
• SIFMA: New Altio release powers high-performance compliance data visualisationPosted: 10-06-2008 19:12:26 UK London time

  Head for Booth 1706 - new version of AltioLive being demonstrated at SIFMA 2008

  Speaking from SIFMA - David Ventris, managing director of Altio: "Using visualisation, our goal is to empower organisations to fully leverage their core data assets."

   

  Altio has reported significant uptake of its products from the compliance arena, which looks set to continue given the launch of the new version of AltioLive. This product enables compliance officers to quickly identify trends, errors and rogue behaviour at a group or individual level. AltioLive is proving key in helping firms meet securities trading and anti-money laundering regulations. Increasingly, Altio is supporting firms that recognise the value and importance of managing and governing their critical corporate data assets. Working in close collaboration with its partners, Altio is on track to deliver at least 15 new installations into the compliance sector in the coming year.

  The AltioLive rich internet application (RIA) framework provides a single interface across multiple data sources, including data warehouses, customer databases, CRM systems and trading systems. It enables compliance departments to contextually view current and historic information in real-time, and can be configured to alert misuse of data.

  "The rich user interface combined with flexible configuration and graphic visualisation allows users to access and understand information quicker and easier," said David Ventris, managing director of Altio. "As a result, they will be better equipped to mitigate risk and secure both the data as well as the organisation. With the added functionality in the new release of AltioLive we expect increased demand as financial institutions strive to meet ever more stringent governance demands."

  AltioLive 5.2 sets a new benchmark for data management and visualisation. Providing a top level summary of the data, users can then drill down into specific areas through fully data-aware components. The new configurable graphing controls capabilities update in real-time - ensuring immediate events are monitored. AltioLive enables users to publish views of the data in common formats such as Microsoft Excel, and PDF.

  "Using visualisation, our goal is to empower organisations to fully leverage their core data assets," continued Ventris. "AltioLive rapidly unlocks existing data assets and future proofs the effects of increasing data accumulation, by providing a data management framework and a powerful interrogation and visualisation tool set."

  AltioLive 5.2 at SIFMA on stand 1706. A beta version can also be downloaded from www.altio.com/AltioLive/Downloads/AltioLive-52-Beta.aspx
• SIFMA: Hot, hot, hotPosted: 10-06-2008 19:04:17 UK London time

  Our US Director of Operations, David Clayden, has made it through registration onto the floor of SIFMA. It's the hottest day of the year in NY so far, but that's not deterring the delegates, who are piling in through the doors. (Or perhaps they're just rushing to reach the aircon.)

  According to David, the SIFMA stage looks set for something special - so as soon as he can figure out how to work his iPhone we'll be posting his live reports on what's hot (apart from the weather).

   
• SIFMA: Busy, busy, busyPosted: 10-06-2008 18:42:59 UK London time What did we say earlier?
  

  11.55am EST: Registration - here they come!

   

   

   
• SIFMA: UNX integrates AMA execution fabric with NYSE floor broker liquidity Posted: 10-06-2008 18:14:12 UK London time Floor brokers gain access to other markets UNX has announced that it has integrated its Advanced Market Access trading platform with the NYSE floor broker community via the SFTI Community Platform. This offering is a major step forward in allowing floor brokers to access liquidity in other markets as well as giving others electronic access to the substantial liquidity that trades on the floor.
  
  “We are very pleased to introduce the visionary SFTI Community Platform with UNX as an inaugural participant,” said Sam Johnson, Executive Vice President, NYSE Euronext Advanced Trading Solutions. “By using the SFTI Community Platform to deploy UNX’s MetaBook® to floor brokers, we have successfully begun a new era of enhanced technology service, accessibility and delivery.”
  
  Michael Rosen, Senior Vice President at UNX adds, "With the UNX Advanced Market Access execution fabric, NYSE floor brokers have the best tools available to access the markets. By more effectively integrating their substantial liquidity with the rest of the markets, all members of the investment community are better served."
  
  
• SIFMA: Volante 3.5 Adds Support for Low-Latency, Event ProcessingAnd Options Symbology MigrationPosted: 10-06-2008 18:12:01 UK London time

  New generation of Volante suite for data management delivers more speed and more processing intelligence

  

  Vijay Oddiraju, CEO, Volante: "We have already accomplished speed, as low as micro seconds in translation. Now we are expanding into more formats and data management capabilities.”

  The next generation of the Volante data management suite has been announced by Volante Technologies, Inc. Version 3.5 delivers new ease in data integration for high-speed financial applications, and enhanced capabilities for specialized data types and integration requirements.

  Solutions built on Volante 3.5, including Volante Streamer for low-latency integrations and Volante Payments Bridge for SWIFTNet in corporate treasury, are being demonstrated today through June 12th at Volante’s booth #4117 at the SIFMA Technology Management Convention in New York.

  “This update was designed specifically to meet the pressures of real-time data and low-latency platforms in finance. We have already accomplished speed, as low as micro seconds in translation. Now we are expanding into more formats and data management capabilities,” said Vijay Oddiraju, CEO of Volante. “The result is a solution that covers a lot of territory. It’s a data management system you can design and implement to handle market data integration, derivatives processing or SWIFT message integration. Or you can use it to standardize and organize data across the enterprise.”

  A wider menu of new and enhanced format plug-ins reduces development time and increases run-time efficiency. These include a growing list of major market data feeds, SWIFT SRG 2008, BAI2, EDI, ISO 8583, and FpML with ISDA and SWIFT validations. A new FAST plug-in offers variants for OPRA, CME, and ISE formats.

  With more options for data-based applications within the integration process, Volante 3.5 enables virtually any depth of data management required. In addition to validation, enrichment, cleansing, reconciliation, exception management and similar data management processes, Volante 3.5 now offers data selection and filtering to support the requirements of complex event processing and algorithmic engines.

  Support for symbology mapping is also included in Volante 3.5. Because Volante can match non-equivalent formats, using reference data look-ups to fill in missing fields in data messages, it is an ideal solution for migrations, such as the shift to new options symbology formats. Users can capture the information benefits of new formats, while continuing to use legacy applications that consume old formats, until they are ready to upgrade.
• SIFMA: SunGard launches Brass Liquidity Services for equities trading Posted: 10-06-2008 18:06:47 UK London time SunGard’s Brass Liquidity Services, a suite of market access solutions for both buy- and sell-side institutions, was launched today.

   

  

  Raj Mahajan, president of SunGard’s trading business: “The introduction of SunGard’s Brass Liquidity Services builds on our strategy to support our customers’ changing needs across the entire trade lifecycle.”

  SunGard’s Brass Liquidity Services helps firms improve execution quality, minimize information leakage and decrease total overall execution costs. Integrated with SunGard’s order and execution management solutions, as well as the SunGard Transaction Network (STN), Brass Liquidity Services includes Brass Sponsored Access, Brass Smart Order Routing, Brass Dark Pool Aggregator, and Algorithms.

  Increased regulation and changes in market structure have caused liquidity to migrate to dark venues, introduced latency to the trade lifecycle, and significantly increased total execution costs. Brass Liquidity Services provides integrated solutions from a single vendor to help buy-side and sell-side institutions explore new revenue opportunities, enhance execution quality and capabilities, and reduce access and clearing costs associated with participating in a deeply fragmented marketplace. Brass Liquidity Services is provided via Assent LLC, a registered broker-dealer. Additionally, the services will be available to the 1,900 asset managers and 250 broker-dealers currently connected to STN for trade automation and execution services.

  SunGard’s Brass Liquidity Services includes:

  • Brass Sponsored Access: Brass Sponsored Access provides customers direct connectivity to protected venues, helping them leverage Assent’s memberships to reach their intended destination. Direct connectivity through Brass Sponsored Access helps customers realize potential cost savings versus membership fees at each venue, as well as decrease both regulatory and reporting obligations associated with exchange memberships. Additionally, Brass’ high-speed, low-latency connectivity helps customers reduce the number of hops it takes to reach the best-priced markets. By minimizing the number of hops, latency in the trade lifecycle is reduced, thus helping customers mitigate their risk against missing a price point. Currently, thirteen firms are using SunGard’s Brass Sponsored Access to access protected venues directly.
  • Brass Smart Order Routing: SunGard’s customizable suite of smart order routing strategies helps automate the decision process. They also enhance execution quality by helping customers execute order flow at the best possible available price across displayed and non-displayed venues. Customers using Brass Smart Order Routing can integrate Brass strategies into their existing trading technology, to help decrease latency and maximize overall execution quality.
  • Brass Dark Pool Aggregator: The Dark Pool Aggregator is an intuitive dark aggregation engine that offers a single point of access to reach strategically targeted dark venues. Employing intelligent routing functionality, the Dark Pool Aggregator concurrently sweeps dark venues for fill opportunities before routing out to displayed market centers. Concurrent sweeping helps customers benefit from reduced latency and information leakage, while helping them to capitalize on non-displayed crossing opportunities and maximize overall execution quality. Consolidated access to multiple pools also helps customers streamline their processes by maintaining a single vendor relationship, rather than maintaining separate agreements with various venues. Furthermore, the Dark Pool Aggregator integrates with SunGard’s trading technology solutions, STN’s order execution services and existing systems. This integration helps improve implementation, reduce time-to-market and improve usage of existing strategies to access dark markets.
  • Algorithms: Developed by quantitative specialists, Brass Liquidity Services offers a series of algorithmic strategies to help reduce market impact and optimize overall execution capabilities. These algorithms provide traders and portfolio managers with comprehensive historical statistics and real-time monitoring of market conditions to help them make smarter decisions and capitalize on available liquidity. Each algorithmic strategy aims to help minimize execution costs by trading in small increments over time. Additionally, customers can access intelligent post-trade analysis. These strategies are accessible from SunGard’s trading technology solutions as well as other vendor solutions.

  “The introduction of SunGard’s Brass Liquidity Services builds on our strategy to support our customers’ changing needs across the entire trade lifecycle,” said Raj Mahajan, president of SunGard’s trading business. “SunGard offers a comprehensive suite of mission-critical products and services that can help provide both buy- and sell-side institutions with complete solutions – from pre-trade analytics to liquidity management to clearing and compliance – helping them maximize profitability, reduce costs and ensure compliance.”

   
• SIFMA: Early doorsPosted: 10-06-2008 17:30:58 UK London time
  

  8.30am EST: Peaceful now - but just you wait...
  
• SIFMA: First Coverage 2.0 ReleasedPosted: 10-06-2008 16:22:35 UK London time Following $9M Series B Financing, First Coverage unveils host of new features.

  First Coverage Inc has announced the release of Version 2.0 of its web-based platform. New features delivered with Version 2.0 include expanded international coverage, enhanced portfolio reporting tools, internal idea tracking, exportable raw data capability, and integrated corporate meeting management functionality. First Coverage, who just last week announced they had successfully raised US $9M in Series B financing, will unveil Version 2.0 at this week’s SIFMA Technology Management Conference in New York City.

  “The take-up of our platform has been phenomenal so far, and we expect Version 2.0 to drive that even further,” said Randy Cass, CEO of First Coverage, Inc. “Nobody in our industry ever wants to overlook information or people that might be able to help their performance and First Coverage allows users to prevent those opportunities from slipping through the cracks.”

  The First Coverage platform allows portfolio managers to efficiently manage, aggregate and evaluate all trade ideas, information and other sell-side services they receive. This enables them to identify the people and data that will add the most value to their investment strategies and creates greater transparency in the commission allocation process. For the sell side, First Coverage provides a method for efficiently reaching a wider audience and a new objective means of clearly demonstrating the value they are delivering. More than 300 firms globally are using First Coverage to send and receive sell-side services including information, ideas and meeting opportunities.

  First Coverage 2.0 offers an enhanced and more tightly-integrated feature set, providing users with the most complete and total evaluation tool for sell-side coverage on the market today. New features include:

  Expanded International Coverage – First Coverage’s integration with all global exchanges allows portfolio managers to now monitor and evaluate information provided by the sell side related to securities anywhere in the world.
  
  Enhanced Portfolio Reporting Tools – Portfolio managers using First Coverage are able to evaluate their coverage either on a per-idea or portfolio-wide basis. New features include daily net asset value (NAV) calculations, displays of actual holdings and the ability to size positions based on conviction levels.

  Internal Idea Tracking – Firms can now use First Coverage to better track and manage ideas and information created within their organization. This functionality enables buy-side professionals to more seamlessly exchange and evaluate internal information and subsequent performance without having to allocate capital.

  Corporate Meeting Management Functionality – Corporate meetings, access to analysts, and conferences offered by the sell side can now be organized, sorted and evaluated within First Coverage by industry-specific parameters (ticker, sector, attendance, meeting type, etc.). This feature allows the buy side to use First Coverage as a unified platform to track and evaluate the entire breadth of their sell-side coverage, creating a complete picture of each firm’s value.

  Exportable Raw Data – Buy-side firms looking to build their own internal databases of sell-side information can now more easily export raw data from First Coverage already tagged with dozens of variables. This allows quantitative firms to utilize First Coverage data in trading algorithms, either real-time or via end-of-day summary files. The ability to now upload massive amounts of structured sell-side data into algorithmic trading models is a global first and represents entire new data streams that buy-side firms can begin to utilize.

  With its first production client going live in early 2007, First Coverage’s user base has grown to more than 300 firms worldwide in just over a year. Earlier this month, First Coverage announced that it had secured US $9 million in a second round of funding from a cross-border syndicate of venture capital investors led by Boston-based Commonwealth Capital Ventures.
• SIFMA: StreamBase 6.0 Delivers the First Visual Debugging, Profiling, and Testing Tools for CEP Posted: 10-06-2008 16:20:25 UK London time StreamBase Systems, Inc. today announced the release of StreamBase version 6.0, the latest version of their award-winning complex event processing (CEP) software platform. StreamBase® version 6.0 is the first CEP platform to deliver critical features that enables enterprise-class development, testing, and deployment features. These features further advance StreamBase’s lead as the easiest and most reliable environment to build, test, debug, profile, and provision CEP applications.

  “As the CEP market continues to grow, business analysts and developers demand more sophisticated tools. StreamBase has always had a singular focus on ease-of-use for business analysts and IT developers to graphically build, deploy, and evolve applications. Version 6.0 further deepens this commitment by not only making StreamBase easier to use, but also by making it easier to debug, test, and support,” said Chris Risley, CEO at StreamBase.
  
  All of these features are fully integrated with the StreamBase’s high-performance CEP platform. Among the new tools in StreamBase 6.0 are:
  
  • StreamBase Visual Debugger: A first for the CEP industry, the StreamBase Visual Debugger allows customers to interactively troubleshoot and analyze application logic and data without leaving the Studio authoring environment. Users can set breakpoints and inspect CEP application logic as data streams flow through the system, including the ability to examine the complete history of each data item through the application. Visual debugging helps developers and business analysts more efficiently find and correct errors in enterprise CEP applications.
  
  • Enterprise Profiler and Real-Time StreamBase Manager: The Enterprise Profiler supports the testing, profiling, and provisioning of software and hardware resources associated with a CEP application. Developers can run StreamBase applications and view reports to conduct detailed analysis of the CPU time and execution time of each operator within a StreamBase application. The results can then be used to optimize application performance through the use of multi-core CPUs and StreamBase’s multi-threaded operators. The Enterprise Profiler helps StreamBase developers understand and optimize their specific CEP application performance.
  
  • Unit Testing: StreamBase’s Unit Testing allows developers to record and store tests simply by recording actions from the StreamBase Studio environment. Members of a multi-member development team can work together in parallel on applications while QA departments can qualify changes using the Unit Testing command line batch interface. The Unit Testing feature helps reduce application errors and enables teams to more quickly and reliably develop enterprise CEP applications.
  
  Mark Palmer, President and COO at StreamBase, said, “StreamBase 6.0 contains features that are an industry first for CEP with its Visual Debugger, Enterprise Profiler, and Unit Testing framework. These advances make StreamBase the easy choice for serious CEP application development.”
  
  “Initial successes for complex event processing technology in capital markets have lead to an interest in expanding the technology across multiple efforts and development teams,” said Adam Honoré, Senior Analyst at Aite Group. “For CEP to become an enterprise-capable technology, tools enabling sound development methodology are essential for building confidence and evangelizing potential new users.”
  
  StreamBase will be exhibiting StreamBase 6.0 at the SIFMA Technology Management Conference 2008 in New York, June 10-12, Booth #1800. Launch partners of StreamBase 6.0 include Thomson Reuters, Vhayu and AMD. StreamBase will also be exhibiting at the SIFMA Hedge Funds and Alternative Investments Summit and Exposition in New York on June 16-17, 2008, Booth #7. For whitepapers, downloads and more information on StreamBase version 6.0 please visit www.streambase.com/v6.htm

   
• SIFMA: Merrill Lynch and Townsend Analytics to Offer Fully Integrated Electronic Trading and Prime Brokerage Platform for Hedge Fund ClientsPosted: 10-06-2008 13:48:19 UK London time Townsend’s RealTick execution management system (EMS) to provide seamless access between ML Execution Services and ML Prime Brokerage to buy-side clients
  

  Jarrod Yuster

  June 9, 2008—Townsend Analytics, a provider of global multi-broker, cross-asset electronic trading solutions, announced today it has strengthened its existing relationship with Merrill Lynch and will offer Merrill Lynch’s clients access to a fully integrated electronic trading and prime brokerage platform through Townsend Analytics’ flagship EMS, RealTick®.

  Merrill Lynch’s execution services already available through RealTick will be further enhanced by the integration of its prime brokerage services, recently ranked the #2 prime broker overall by Global Custodian magazine. This platform will allow clients to easily employ complex trading strategies across all assets, while also utilizing Merrill Lynch’s prime brokerage services such as settlement, clearance and custody.

  “Merrill Lynch is excited to offer this expanded platform to our clients, which provides an effective combination of technology and service,” explains Jarrod Yuster, head of Global Portfolio and Electronic Trading at Merrill Lynch.

  “Bringing together Merrill Lynch’s sophisticated and highly customizable electronic trading strategies with its global prime brokerage services will enhance Merrill Lynch's competitive offerings for our hedge fund and institutional clients,” he adds.

  “Merrill Lynch’s clients know they can rely upon RealTick in today’s fragmented and volatile markets,” states Michel Finzi, managing director, global head of Sales and Marketing for Townsend Analytics. “Our integration of Merrill’s prime brokerage services ensures they can also access the proprietary products and strategic solutions they need from one convenient platform.”
• SIFMA: RTI Introduces Ultra Low-Latency Messaging Solution for .NET Applications.Posted: 10-06-2008 13:40:54 UK London time

  Using RTI middleware and standard Gigabit Ethernet networks, distributed .NET applications can achieve an inter-application messaging latency of less than 100 microseconds, while most traditional .NET messaging solutions have latencies closer to a millisecond. Each application thread can send or receive up to 1,000,000 messages per second, versus between 1,000 and 10,000 messages per second with typical solutions. Because RTI utilizes peer-to-peer communication with no intermediate message brokers, servers or daemon processes that create choke points, aggregate system-wide throughput is limited only by the network switching fabric.