Crow Point Partners Picks LiquidityBook's POEMS

The LBX suite replaces the Eze Software investment suite. Peter DeCaprio, Crow Point's head of trading and co-portfolio manager, tells WatersTechnology the firm began looking for a replacement around mid-2015, and the process took roughly six months.

"Eze is a good system but at the end of the day it was just too expensive and not flexible enough for us," DeCaprio says. "We felt like a web-based platform would make the most sense for our business given the mobility and ease of management it would offer, and LiquidityBook's system ticked all those boxes and then some."

Eze didn't respond to a request for comment. 

DeCaprio says three things stood out about LiquidityBook that seperated it from the rest of the pack. 

"First was their approach to pricing—they were very transparent about what the total costs for both us and our broker counterparties would be, which is not the case with many vendors," DeCaprio says. "Second was the benefits that their web-based model provided in terms of simplicity and flexibility. And third was the comprehensiveness of the system, offering EMS, OMS, PMS and connectivity all through a single platform."

The solution will be used to support the firm's trading in equities, options, futures, fixed income and foreign exchange (FX). Crow Point is also using LiquidityBook's LBX Connect FIX routing network for its 25 brokers.

The rollout lasted roughly 2.5 months, DeCaprio says.  

"Our workflows aren't particularly unique, but LiquidityBook was able to tailor the system to our specific needs and also connect to our 25 brokers without much hassle," DeCaprio says. "The LiquidityBook support team has been great throughout the whole process—they focus a lot on the little things and it shows."