Buy-Side Technology/Feature
Dabbling in the dark
Dark pools started to appear as early as a decade ago in the US market, but it has only been over the course of the last two years that they have attracted sufficient liquidity – perhaps as much as 12% of US equity orders and 4% in Europe – to make them…
Adapt or die
Smart order routing is not a new phenomenon for buy- and sell-side organisations, but the tools that let firms route trades according to their own specific criteria have evolved significantly over the last two years. Gone are the days when these…
Safety in numbers
One isn’t just the loneliest number – it can also be the most dangerous. The traditional ‘single-prime’ hedge fund model, severely tested at the close of 2008, is a case in point, as hedge funds move towards multiple prime broker relationships. By…
Editor's Letter - Making a molehill out of a mountain
Technology, especially when it comes to the financial services industry, can be pretty dreary stuff. Unless of course you're a propeller-head who grew up learning how to write code instead of playing computer games and falling out of trees. But that isn…
The 2009 Buy-Side Technology Awards
This year’s awards featured 120 entries across 18 categories from 52 different technology providers. The most popular category was that of best newcomer with 13 entries, while this year’s edition featured eight new winners.
Coming in from the cold
Central clearing has dominated the agenda of credit derivatives dealers this year, even though buy-side firms are yet to gain access to such industry initiatives. But, as Joel Clark reports, this is set to change mid-way through next month if the…
TCA plugs into the front office
The rise of TCA data over the past few years has caused some head scratching among investment managers. How to incorporate this data into a broader investment process beyond a means of evaluating execution quality has proven tricky, although progress in…
Alone in the dark
For years, as dark pools proliferated in the US and now take hold in Europe, industry sources have speculated that consolidation among these venues was inevitable. The consensus was that upwards of 40 different venues operating in the US couldn’t all…
Made to measure
Gone are the days of buy-side firms implementing broker-developed algorithmictrading tools without the ability to question their underlying assumptions. Perhaps more crucially, the ability to tailor those algorithms to more accurately reflect changing…
Performance precedents
Performance measurement, has in recent years moved into the front office, as buy-side firms look to integrate performance into a single, integrated platform. This move has been accompanied by compressed reporting timeframes and the emergence of risk as…
Dark pools: What lies beneath?
Regulators in the US and Europe are keeping an eye on how dark execution venues operate. Do they need to be more transparent in their operations? Although no concrete proposals have been forthcoming, any regulations are set to have a profound impact on…
Taming the beast
OTC derivatives market participants have known for some time that the days of dealing with nary a regulator in sight were numbered. However, the US Treasury Department recently issued its most concrete regulatory suggestion, even though many of the…
Back to basics
Linedata Services has always been one of the most progressive providers of technology to the buy side in terms of the depth and maturity of its ASP offerings. Linedata's Mike Medley explains how Linedata's hosted services clients - traditionally smaller…
Perfect Partners
The hosted services model is not a new phenomenon to the financial services industry. But during these testing times it has become more relevant to buy side firms offering managers the benefits of fixed IT costs, reduced time to market for new…
The TCO conundrum
Implementations can be beset by unforeseen hiccups, which tends to result in inflated budgets and missed deadlines. SmartStream's TLM OnDemand addresses users' total cost of ownership challenges and provides buy-side firms with reduced time to market…
Pricing imperfections
Allocating a definitive and transparent price to an asset for which no active market exists is a process mired in complexity and controversy. David Patrikarakos investigates the new generation of valuation models to address the pricing and valuations…
Risk in progress
For years, the notion of real-time risk management to better inform buy-side traders prior to making executions has proven elusive. And now that lessons learned from the ongoing global financial crisis continue to mount, the value of real-time pre-trade…
Great expectations
Institutional investors are driving the buy side in terms of the adoption of best practices and the technology that underpins such initiatives. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the client reporting realm where institutional players have come to…
Dark diligence
“Who do you trust?” As that question gains pertinence among buy-side managers, aspects of their relationships with broker-dealers have come under scrutiny. In the midst of sell-side upheavals and ongoing volatility, buy-side traders might presume to find…
Going wholly hosted
MFC Global Investment Management, the investment management arm of Canadian financial services firm Manulife Financial Corporation, recently faced a challenge familiar to many buy-side managers with global infrastructures: moving operations scattered…
Baptism of fire
Counterparty risk has historically been an issue mostly for sell-side institutions to address, but the collapse of Lehman Brothers laid that notion to rest. Now, investment managers have had to get up to speed on what risks their counterparty exposures…
Compliance 2009: Who's pulling the strings?
Compliance, like risk management, has traditionally been seen as a business process that curtails portfolio managers’ ability to generate returns. But this has changed to the point that now managers see compliance as a way of winning mandates. By Victor…
A product of participation
One of the greatest challenges facing South African financial institutions relates to the cost of their technology, especially when it comes to buying applications from foreign vendors by virtue of the weak rand compared to the dollar and sterling. But…
Fund managers gear up down south
The South African investment management industry is small compared with those of the US East Coast and Western Europe. But as Victor Anderson reports, a small industry does not necessarily imply an unsophisticated one.