CA Cheuvreux Prepares Internal Cross

Officials have completed the first phase of the project: rolling out Blink internally. The crossing network will be available to CA Cheuvreux clients by yearend, according to Ian Peacock, CEO of CA Cheuvreux North America.

The brokerage will first send client orders through block and broker dark liquidity pools and then send duplicate orders into Blink and the open market. If the order is filled in the internal crossing network, the duplicate order is automatically and simultaneously pulled from the displayed liquidity venues. Orders are crossed against the brokerage's agency flow and are matched based on price.

Customers will have the ability to opt in or out of running their orders through Blink, which was internally developed. CA Cheuvreux aims to provide lower execution costs and lower trade latency to its customers, Peacock says.

The second stage of the rollout will include the addition of resident dark orders to Blink, he adds.

To keep in pace with customer demand, CA Cheuvreux is also working to add voice trading and direct market access (DMA) to markets in Latin America.

The brokerage plans to offer execution services in Mexico by the end of December, with Brazilian trading to be available during the first quarter of 2009. CA Cheuvreux has been working with a local broker-dealer in Mexico to set up operations, according to Peacock, who declines to name the firm.

CA Cheuvreux will add more sophisticated tools to Latin America as the market grows, Peacock adds.

Meanwhile, north of the U.S. border, CA Cheuvreux is currently internally testing algorithms to be rolled out in Canada this month. Although CA Cheuvreux uses a mix of proprietary and vendor technology, in a best-of-breed approach, all the algorithms are internally developed, according to Peacock.

To further support its clients on the West Coast of the U.S., CA Cheuvreux opened an office in San Francisco (DWT, Sept. 8). The new office supports increased demand from U.S. investors for research on European equities coupled with a complete suite of execution services covering global markets, officials said at the time.

CA Cheuvreux hired David Basham and Karen Linsky as European equity sales staff. Both hires bring experience, most recently from Bear Stearns, where Basham was a senior managing director of equity sales and Linsky served as an associate director.