Waters Rankings 2021: Best agency broker—BMO Capital Markets

WHY THEY WON

Over the last year and a half BMO Capital Markets has made significant investments, most notably with the acquisition of Clearpool, the investment in PureStream, and the partnership with Luminex. This investment was obviously noticed by our voters. 

WHAT’S NEW

In April 2020, BMO Capital Markets completed the acquisition of agency broker Clearpool Group.

In February, BMO made a minority investment in PureStream Trading Technologies, the US trading venue that re-engineers the price and liquidity discovery process, focusing on parent order completion speeds, not per-trade latency. 

It also partnered with Luminex, where BMO clients who are also Luminex ATS subscribers can leverage the liquidity sourcing and customization ability of BMO’s algorithmic strategies while simultaneously leveraging a technical integration to access block liquidity within the Luminex network. 

The company also hired Eric Stockland to partner with BMO Institutional clients on a quantitative and iterative approach to electronic trading. And Michael Green was hired to lead its European expansion efforts.  

WHAT’S TO COME 

BMO Capital Markets is focusing on bringing its electronic trading solutions to Europe for equities.

It is also testing out new strategies to improve execution quality and algorithmic performance. 

BMO’s quantitative systematic trading group is helping clients conduct experiments, while continuing to develop innovative electronic trading solutions for BMO institutional clients.