Meeting the FIX Family

Here’s a thought: If you were to remove the FIX protocol, very little would happen … literally. At least that’s the case when it comes to equities—and, to a lesser degree, fixed-income trading—for which, according to TowerGroup research, 80 percent of buy-side firms and in excess of 85 percent of sell-side firms use FIX to support their electronic trading activities.

It is unlikely, however, that back in 1992 when Bob Lamoureux and his technology team at Boston-based Fidelity Investments started