He was most recently head of UK equity trading at UBS Asset Management, having previously served as a high touch equity sales trader at Kepler Cheuvreux.

London-based Lawrence has extensive experience working across both the sell- and buy-side, working across asset classes.

Prior to Kepler, he had worked at Principal Global Investors as a senior equities trader, Instinet as an equity sales trader, Ennismore Fund Management as head trader, and also served as a European market maker at ABN AMRO.

Read more: In conversation with… Stuart Lawrence

Lawrence announced his new role in a social media announcement. UBS Asset Management had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publishing.

The post Lawrence named head of European equities trading at UBS AM appeared first on The TRADE.

Market consolidation versus liquidity fragmentation will be a point of discussion into next year. The Swiss Exchange Group acquisition of Aquis will be an obvious one to watch, while in contrast, there are a slew of new liquidity opportunities expected to go live in 2025. However, the jury’s out on whether further fragmentation is needed given the continued squeeze in order book liquidity and/or whether the market has the capacity to connect as internalisation continues to take priority for many.   

Next year could see the re-emerging debate around shorter trading hours ratchet up, which contrasts to the 24-hour trading agenda in the US. Separately, conversations are likely to continue in support of single regulatory framework for Europe. 

The selection procedure for the European equities tape starts next June, with a decision made by the end of 2025. Hopefully the UK will also announce their views on an equities tape next year. September will see Europe ban payment for order flow and introduce a new 7% single volume cap for dark trading. Otherwise, focus must be on making equities markets more transparent and less bilateral to attract international investment and prevent further primary issuance leaving these shores.

Joe Collery, head of trading, Comgest 

I feel the biggest trend in 2025 will be redefinition of the roles of ELPs [electronic liquidity providers]. Market participants continue to lament the inadequacy of liquidity in continuous market trading which will lead to shift in how ELPs provide their liquidity to fill this perceived gap.

Jo Burnham, risk and margining SME, OpenGamma

Predictions are a tricky business. Three years ago, would many people have predicted that Donald Trump would be returning to the Presidency in early 2025, with long-term wars raging in both Europe and the Middle East? Investors have learnt that they need to expect the unexpected, which is why liquidity risk management practices are now so important.

I see this being a big theme for market participants next year – ensuring that they are operationally resilient. Being able to navigate margin requirements and optimise the ways that they are met is so important in a volatile geopolitical environment, which inevitably permeates through to financial markets.

Bjorn Sibbern, global head of exchanges, SIX Swiss Exchange 

In 2025, the challenge for European primary markets will be creating an investment environment that fosters innovation while attracting global IPOs, not just competing for regional dominance. On the secondary markets front, liquidity fragmentation remains a pressing issue. 

By the end of next year, exchanges will need to have made significant strides in venue innovation, not only to retain institutional flow but also to foster greater retail participation. Short and sharp bouts of market volatility, as we saw this year with the global equity sell-off in August, could also shape the trading landscape. This is why exchanges must evolve with smarter tools and deeper liquidity to remain the trusted platforms for price discovery. 

Matt Clarke, head of distribution and liquidity management for EMEA, XTX Markets 

In 2025, we expect five or more ELPs [electronic liquidity providers] to offer actionable liquidity directly into the major EMS platforms and the Reactive Markets network across EU and US equities. It is entirely possible we’ll see one or more banks extend similar offerings to select clients. Our preferred approach involves a broker in the middle, allowing buy-side firms to outsource ELP onboarding and benefit from aggregated prices in competition. This model enables liquidity providers to offer tailored liquidity and collaborate with end-clients. 

The exact form of this workflow is still developing with the buy-side playing a key role in shaping it. Successful solutions will have low onboarding friction, work for both automated and click trading, and aggregate all liquidity sources in one place. This aggregation of liquidity will drive fierce price competition, leading to better trading outcomes.  The potential rewards of this workflow are increased size and mid presence, resulting in measurably better execution quality. As always, results are what will drive long-term adoption.

Keep an eye out for further predictions unpacking all corners of the market published by The TRADE in the coming weeks!

The post The TRADE predictions series 2025: The liquidity landscape appeared first on The TRADE.

According BMLL Technologies data, bilateral trading accounted for 35% of overall notional traded as of November 2024, including request for quote (RFQ), off-book on-exchange, over the counter (OTC) and SI volumes both above and below the large in scale (LiS) threshold. This marks a 12% increase since January 2021.

Defining what falls into the bilateral sphere is important. Regulators in the last few months have been attempting to clean up reporting flags in a bid to offer greater transparency to participants looking to better understand the landscape.

One of the most notable bilateral growth stories, however, is that of the off-book on-exchange segment. This umbrella term again accounts for a whole host of things including retail flow and high touch agency crosses. Cboe and Aquis’ new VWAP offerings will also print their flow as off-book on-exchange for example.

Central to the growth of the off-book segment and perhaps responsible for ruffling the most feathers is a relatively new workflow whereby non-bank liquidity providers quote directly to the buy-side via their execution management systems (EMS) leveraging actionable indications of interest (IOIs). It’s this new growth among other areas that has attracted notable attention from the industry and sparked new offerings from the more traditional players looking to preserve their market share.

The benefits of streamlined buy-side workflows are clear: offering better price improvement, reduced market impact and time to market and greater flexibility around liquidity access. What’s more, with volumes on the lit market continuing to decline, one can hardly blame traders for exploring alternatives to traditional workflows.

That being said, the bilateral segment is becoming increasingly meaningful with both alternative and now traditional players exploring new workflows, and some participants are now beginning to question whether such a level of bilateral trading exists that could be detrimental to the market’s long term health. Some participants have even begun suggesting that the European equities market could find itself on track to adopting an almost completely off-exchange foreign exchange model in the next few years if it continues on its current path. However, this eventuality is highly unlikely. Said bilateral workflows rely heavily on a reference price from the lit markets. Ironically, the thing that stands to be damaged if too many volumes move off-exchange.

For buy-side traders, the appeal of executing without going out to market is – understandably – hard to resist, but the question as to whose job it is to now moderate the level of bilateral liquidity in the market is now somewhat continuously being asked.

“I can understand the appeal to a buy-side trader thinking ‘I can clear my entire blotter with one click of a button so why don’t I do that and not have to worry about direct market impact?’,” explains T. Rowe Price’s equity trader and market structure analyst, Evan Canwell.

“There’s definitely a place for bilateral liquidity, but it’s incumbent on us as the buy-side to understand what we’re interacting with and think about the balance. It’s like fast food, it might feel good in the short term but there could be unintended consequences for the longer term health of the trading ecosystem.”

Non-bank providers

One of the most spoken about names in this context is, of course, Optiver. While the firm is not solely responsible for the growth of off-book on-exchange, the market maker’s model of connecting directly to the buy-side via EMS has taken the market by a storm. The firm’s model is risk filling but without acting as a systematic internaliser (SI).

“It [bilateral trading for blocks] never really took off as a product whereas the way I look at the more recent developments in bilateral liquidity, it’s for a lower liquidity demand which does feel more sustainable,” says Legal & General Investment Management’s global head of trading, Ed Wicks.

While historical bilateral connections with other alternative providers – namely XTX Markets – have historically been more focused on smaller flow, Optiver’s model offers the opportunity to trade blocks of 5-20% of average daily volume (ADV), The TRADE understands. And it’s this element that has piqued buy-side interest. It’s easy ‘fill or kill’ model means traders don’t have to go out to market in order to execute, simplifying workflows and reducing market impact.

“The liquidity provision workflow can be a useful tool, especially given the recent record lows of lit liquidity. If you can get done and risk filled, there’s an efficiency to that,” says Hayley McDowell, EU equity electronic sales trader and EU market structure Consultant at RBC Capital Markets.

It’s this efficiency that has seen the buy-side continue to use this model of trading to execute flow. According to BMLL Technologies data, as of November 2024, off-book on-exchange constituted 58% of all bilateral trading activity – around €376bn – evidencing how attractive this model is to firms in comparison with multilateral venues and platforms in the lit markets.

“If I see a workflow solution that is potentially saving costs for funds and ultimately delivering good outcomes for clients then we have to evaluate it,” adds Wicks.

“For us, it’s [bilateral] more of an efficiency workflow tool for the lower liquidity demand orders or baskets we have. We consume the feed into our EMS so when an order hits our desk we can see straight away whether the whole order can be fulfilled by the bilateral liquidity. Not having to declare anything is an asymmetric benefit to us because we can see whether that liquidity can be fully filled on a fill or kill basis.

“If we were to go into the secondary markets utilising a liquidity seeking algorithm that would have a cost relative to trading at midpoint on the bilateral feed. For a subset of our flow from a cost perspective and an efficiency perspective it makes a lot of sense to us to utilise that bilateral liquidity.”

In light of the growing bilateral sphere, agency brokers such as BTIG and Redburn Atlantic have also been busy launching services that aggregate and streamline liquidity from alternative and electronic liquidity providers (ELPs) and connect the buy-side with them via an EMS or via a custom algorithmic strategy, all with the aim of easing the strain on the buy-side by channelling liquidity to them via one location.

“Traditional liquidity aggregation is not an option when trading bilaterally, but connecting clients to multiple competing quotes – on a fill-or-kill basis – via a single access point saves them time, limits selection bias and increases overall hit rates,” head of trading and algorithmic solutions at Redburn Atlantic, Phil Risley, tells The TRADE.

“The challenge in optimising the approach to principal liquidity, is to balance the ELP’s need to understand the profile of the flow with which they interact and the requirement to minimise information leakage.

“Ultimately, the goal is to create a virtuous cycle, with high quality flow incentivising larger and more consistent quotes – aligning interests and ensuring everyone wins.”

Redburn’s offering claims to tackle issues around market impact by operating under a fill or kill basis. Each client order is matched immediately in its entirety with a single ELP or not at all. It is directly available to the buy-side with qualifying flow via their EMS as a custom algo strategy. A spokesperson confirmed that the firm is speaking with all of the major non-bank SIs regarding onboarding. The ELP liquidity is not aggregated but available from a single point of access.

BTIG’s offering currently takes in live streams from three ELPs. Based on client preferences, it streams the best quote into the buy-side client’s EMS. A source has confirmed that the number of provider partners used by BTIG is growing.

Said quote can be anything from mid to far point liquidity in different shapes. If the client wants to interact they click to instantly execute or use OMS automation. The client then faces BTIG for settlement so there is no additional onboarding required.

The client has the choice whether to remain anonymous or allow ELP to profile them which may result in tighter pricing. This offering is also available via BTIG algos which for some buy-side clients may fit workflow better with wheels.

Traditional banks strike back

Given the growth of market share seen by these alternatives, the market has also seen a wave of new interest in this area by the traditional banks as they look to maintain their market share and retain commissions.

Major sell-side have offered systematic bilateral liquidity for years now but the practice hasn’t seen mainstream adoption for several reasons. Historically connecting bilaterally to a CRB for example has always been seen as a bit of a blind play as you don’t necessarily know what else is in there. The services for blocks have typically also only been on an ad hoc basis for banks’ larger clients.

“The evolution of IOIs being sent directly to client EMS’ is a net positive and opens up further trading opportunities and importantly enhances workflows, particularly when offered alongside a robust TCA process to help manage the challenges of longer term parent level impact,” explains Goldman Sachs’ managing director and head EMEA electronic and program trading, Alex Harman.

“This year we have been working with the major EMS’ to utilise actionables to deliver liquidity in several products; blocks, IS and close benchmarks. Expect to see a lot more from us here in the future.

“Our systematic GMOC product was the first of its kind and remains a heavily used product as part of our close benchmark offering. More recently we launched our DTC Stealth product, which is a tactic within our SOR that leverages dedicated liquidity from our systemic internaliser, plus other non-displayed liquidity with the aim to fully fill parent orders.”

With alternative players now targeting larger flow, major sell-side are looking to create their own direct connections via EMS providers in order to compete in a second wave of the bilateral evolution.

“I know several [big banks] are building aggregators and liquidity workflows that try and mimic some of the bilateral features. Whether we see a pure bilateral product from the investment bank similar to what we see from the alternatives I still don’t know if that will be the case,” adds Wicks.

“More traditional liquidity providers like the investment banks are now looking at it with some degree of urgency to try and insert themselves into that workflow. I don’t know how many more [bilateral offerings] we would need frankly but we will look at them when they come.”

Fast food?

With both electronic and alternative players cementing their workflows and major sell-side looking to follow suit, the bilateral segment is becoming extremely meaningful for both the buy-side and the wider market. And this meaningfulness is what’s raising some eyebrows. With the proposition now irresistibly attractive to the buy-side, the longer term impacts are now being assessed.

“The issue comes if too much of your flow goes that way,” says McDowell. “It can also impact on-venue liquidity. If has a trader has a large order on the pad, they might go to an ELP first, then maybe an SI, before going to the order book last.”

Given the existing decline of lit, this natural evolution – and it is a natural evolution – has the potential to become a bit of a self-fulling prophecy as spreads and toxicity increase in the lit market.

“Most buy-side firms and a lot of market participants would recognise that it’s in most people’s interests to make sure that lit markets remain a functioning viable part of the market,” concurs Wicks.

Traditional sell-side bring with them whole swathes of other auxiliary services that are bundled with their services across settlement, payments and research to name a few. Electronic and alternative liquidity providers do not provide these extensively and their services are usually limited to the execution side of things.

“Longer term, if we end up with a large part of the market trading bilaterally then we may start seeing impacts elsewhere – for example, will traditional brokers start reducing resources in other areas to focus more on liquidity provision?” Asks Canwell. “Will we see reduced price formation and greater toxicity on-exchange if smaller orders end up in bilateral mechanisms?”

The role of the regulator

The question now being asked by many is: what is the role of the regulator? Some participants are asking whether it is fair that some market makers should be able to risk fill clients without operating as an SI and the associated pre-trade transparency.

Ultimately, given this is the natural evolution of where the market is heading, it’s hard to see an eventuality where regulators would step in to prevent it. Famously, regulators tried to tackle decreasing exchange traded volumes with caps on dark trading in Europe during the Mifid II Review and the multi-year tug-of-war esque saga that achieved an arbitrary result of deleting the 4% and 8% double volume caps (DVCs) in favour of a single cap of 7% has largely been criticised as a waste of time.

“If they [regulators] think too much is being done off-exchange and there’s not enough price formation on-exchange, potentially I could see them stepping in,” says Canwell. “One area where there might be more regulatory scrutiny is around the closing auction because there’s a lot more being done off the primary closing auction in recent years.”

One area regulators should and are looking to change is around transparency. Reporting flags were one such area that was focused on by both UK and European regulators in April in order to simplify the regime and try to understand a bit better where volumes are being executed within the market. The concept of what is addressable and what is not is something now being explored by participants and regulators and could result in further probing from watchdogs.

“Reporting changes had a profound impact on the liquidity landscape. It was confusing before and a lot of the flags didn’t necessarily make sense. There was a lot of repetition and noise,” says McDowell. “Traders are looking for more transparency in the off-book space. Some participants are using “off-book” as a means of printing activity, but peers and clients are unclear about exactly what off-book on-exchange is.”

All roads lead back to the consolidated tape. And there is, of course, the likelihood that we will have a consolidated data source in the next decade (fingers crossed). This will also bring with it extensive transparency that will help both participants and regulators alike to better understand and interpret the market picture around percentages of liquidity accounted for by different segments. Given how participants and regulators alike are turning their attention to the addressability of flow, it may even be a worthwhile venture to do an independent analysis of how stable pricing is in Europe.  

“The market structure needs to respond to this change in dynamics and central to this is the delivery of a consolidated tape in both the UK and EU so all market participants can understand what liquidity is available where,” said Eleanor Beasley, EMEA equities COO and head of market structure at Goldman Sachs. “Understanding the different mechanisms leveraged to deploy bilateral liquidity is important as is understanding where this volume is printing.”

The growth of various different trading workflows that fall under the bilateral umbrella is undeniable and certainly something that participants and regulators alike should be keeping tabs on. Whether or not it’s something watchdogs should intervene with is another matter. Bilateral liquidity only works to a certain size. There will always be a portion of the market that requires public markets and going out to find the other side.

The market’s natural evolution is what it is. If these providers are offering buy-side traders an attractive service, who’s to say it is wrong or right? Perhaps as Canwell noted earlier the onus is on the buy-side to steer the market in the “right” direction.

However, when an order hits the pad, it’s rare for a trader to sit back and think about the wider long term market implications instead of whether a workflow will achieve the desired best outcome for their trades and subsequently their clients. On the current trajectory, our markets are likely set to look fairly different in the next five years. Whether that’s wrong is one for the philosophers that walk among us.

The post Liquidity, it’s a two-way street appeared first on The TRADE.

BMO will now offer a range of trading opportunities tailored to their institutional client base through OptimX.

“BMO has been at the forefront of delivering cutting-edge trading technology to its global clients,” said Peter McStay, head of OptimX EMEA.  

“We are thrilled to partner with a leading European broker and are eager to expand this collaboration across global markets in the near future.”

The two firms noted that the strategic partnership meets increasing demand from institutional traders for a centralised technology that provides improved access to significant liquidity.

Watch now: BMO Capital Markets on the success of their collaborative approach

“We welcome the opportunity to expand our partnership with OptimX and deliver an opportunity to help facilitate blocks for our institutional clients,” said Mike Green, managing director, chief operating officer, EMEA electronic trading at BMO Capital.

The post BMO Capital and OptimX Markets partner to deliver flow in European markets appeared first on The TRADE.

We need to take a step back and look at today’s trading desk. By dissecting a trading desk into its functions, processes, and tasks, it becomes clear that 80% or more can be successfully automated with today’s technology – and that figure is just for the front-office, potentially even higher in the middle- and back-office. We first need to envision how the job will evolve in the coming years. I envision the trader’s role converging into a multifaceted position where responsibilities traditionally spanning from the front- to the back-office will be seamlessly integrated and executed with the aid of technology.

These technological advancements will profoundly impact our industry and give rise to a new kind of role: the “domain jack of all trades.” In other words, traders will likely become more akin to product owners. Being a market expert and knowing all the ins and outs of trading will no longer be sufficient. Instead, we will need to be familiar with all aspects of the business, from legal and settlement processes to transaction cost analysis and trading. This implies that fewer people will be needed to run a trading desk end-to-end, with more operations running as a one-man show, relying on the interaction of a human and a multitude of specialist systems or AIs. 

So, what are the skills of a domain jack of all trades? 

By definition, many, but the key ones I believe will be relevant are: 

Project Management Skills: The ability to manage multiple tasks, prioritise efficiently, and oversee the implementation and maintenance of automated trading workflows.

Adaptability and Curiosity: Flexibility to adapt to new market and regulatory conditions. A continuous drive to learn about every single corner of the business and market. This adaptability will be essential in an environment where change is constant and rapid.

Technical Skills: While traders may not need to program large-scale applications, the ability to retrieve and analyse data will remain vital. Skills in basic programming or systems knowledge will be necessary for tasks such as manual overrides, improvements, and customisations. Understanding technology will be crucial for validating automated workflows.

Soft Skills: Strong communication skills to convey complex information to diverse stakeholders. Problem-solving and creativity to navigate and innovate within complex systems. A holistic business understanding to see the broader picture and integrate various aspects of the business effectively. This is, and will likely continue to be, a people business, requiring strong interpersonal skills to manage relationships and collaborate effectively.

The interesting aspect of this vision is that no single degree can prepare you for this. It is unrealistic to expect a trader to be formally trained in finance, software engineering, and law to do the job. Therefore, either education will need to become significantly more industry-focused, or firms will have to identify and develop new talents to become the domain jack of all trades.

The trader of the future will be a multifaceted professional, adept at integrating technology, traditional market expertise, and a broad understanding of the operational aspects of the business. This evolution will streamline trading operations, creating more efficient and dynamic trading desks powered by human-AI collaboration.

How can firms ensure that their traders receive the necessary support to do so?

We have two aspects to consider, how our firms will develop domain jack of all trades within the existing workforce and how will we recruit them. In terms of development, I work for an organisation that has successfully cultivated domain jack of all trades for years. What I have seen is that ownership is what transforms a great employee or trader into a do-it-all, all-terrain expert; giving more responsibility and freedom only brings the very best of people as far as the firm’s mission is clear to everyone in the organisation, which is the case of NBIM – with the added advantage of having a common goal.

As a trader, this ownership can mean taking full responsibility for an asset class and/or a region. This includes managing counterparty relationships, overseeing internal processes, making key decisions, and communicating across various stakeholders. Effectively, you own a start-up within a larger organisation. This setup naturally drives innovation, improves how things are run, and maximises returns. Because of this, I believe that firms with a flatter structure are better positioned to foster ownership and hence develop successful domain jack of all trades.

Additionally, rotations or secondments across all seniority levels have been widely popular and highly effective tools. They not only support the development and future-proof our workforce but also cross-pollinate best practices. This exposure to different parts of the business helps traders develop a broad skill set and a deep understanding of the entire trading operation.

The other aspect is how do we recruit domain jack of all trades. It is obvious that the old-school interview rounds, and brain teasers and esoteric questions are no longer relevant. Hiring will likely become a lot more expensive. New grads will probably be hired from summer internships or similar programs where we can evaluate individuals over a longer time horizon. Finding well-rounded candidates for trading roles will be very difficult with short hiring processes.

How do you expect traders to adapt to software engineering requirements in the future?

The claim that traders will speak the language of software engineering is becoming increasingly true. However, it’s essential to understand that software engineering encompasses much more than just programming. While AI might handle the bulk of coding tasks, there will always be a need for scripting and integration. If we consider the trader as the conductor of an orchestra of AIs, the need for software engineering becomes much more apparent. The trader, as the domain expert, will need to resort to engineering principles to design and aid in the development of trading workflows and systems.

Traders of the future will need to develop a robust understanding of engineering principles to collaborate effectively with technical teams and machines. This shift will enable them to design, develop, and manage complex trading workflows, leveraging the full potential of AI and automation. As the conductor of an orchestra of AIs, the trader’s role will evolve to integrate technical expertise with market knowledge, driving innovation and efficiency in trading operations.

In your Oxford style debate, your opponent is arguing AI will fill the role of coding and traders will go back to the phones – what do you think will happen?

I think Armon-Jones uses the phone as an analogy for the business getting even more relationship based. With increasing process and decision-making automation in trading, I cannot see this evolving in that direction – unless the trader makes a script to instruct the systems to route volume based on what broker took him/her out for lunch that week, in which case the trader would need to know how to program!

If voice trading is supposed to save the role of the traditional trader, we should see this role growing significantly over the next couple of years. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Looking at current trends and how the future is shaping up, there will be a reduction of workforce at the trading desks. When that reduction of personnel required to run a trading desk becomes its minimum, it will converge to the trader as the conductor of an orchestra of AIs or the “domain jack of all trades”. It sounds scary, but also it opens lots of exciting possibilities and new roles in the industry.

The post The future role of the trader as product owner appeared first on The TRADE.

Named CollateralOne, the new platform expands the triparty offering for the buy-side by connecting clients to other aspects of BNY’s ecosystem, helping them centralise how they manage their collateral and financing activities, while providing the option of opportunistic specials-only lending.    

Speaking to The TRADE, Laide Majiyagbe, head of financing and liquidity at BNY, explained: “CollateralOne seamlessly delivers collateral, financing, and liquidity management to our clients in a single place. It is the outcome of our continued focus at BNY to be more for our clients. 

“In our pursuit of this, we actively seek new ways to bring more of our institution to clients and to deliver innovative solutions that meet their evolving needs.” 

BNY said CollateralOne provides clients with a holistic view of all their assets, liabilities and opportunities in one place.

Read more: BNY Mellon to provide outsourced trading solution to the buy-side 

Adam Vos, global head of Markets at BNY, explained that the move had come in response to client demand: “In today’s complex investment landscape, our clients are looking for comprehensive solutions that simplify securities lending, financing and collateral management. 

“With this integration, our buy-side clients can leverage the benefits of engaging in securities lending within a single ecosystem, grounded in BNY’s leadership in triparty collateral management.”   

The post BNY unveils new collateral offering for the buy-side appeared first on The TRADE.

Surrounded by colleagues and friends from across the industry, Royal took to the stage at Chelsea Piers to accept his award.

After almost 40 years in the industry, Royal is set to retire at the end of December, handing the reins to his successor Hugh Spencer.

Royal needs little introduction. Beginning his career in 1984 as an FX trading manager at Cargill, based in Chicago, his career spans four decades. 

After 10 years in his first role, Royal moved to SJO Asset Management where he spent two years as a senior global trader based in Geneva. He then headed to John W. Henry & Company where he spent four years in the same role based out of Florida. 

It was in 2001 that Royal first joined Janus Henderson. After a five year stint at the firm in a senior equity and foreign exchange trading role he left for a brief interlude at Artisan Partners where he spent just under two years as director of global equity trading and operations. He re-joined Janus Henderson in 2008 and, as they say, the rest is history. 

Royal has been global head of equity trading for Janus Henderson Investors since 2017 and despite his now-lofty title as global head he continues to trade both US securities and foreign exchange for the firm.

This ethos is something that he has instilled in his traders, including his now successor, Spencer.

Alongside his extensive history serving on the buy-side, Royal has remained committed to contributing to various industry associations throughout his career. He is currently a member of the National Organisation of Investment Professions and of the IEX Buy-Side Trading Advisory Committee. He has also previously spent periods of his career serving on the NYSE/ICE and NASDAQ Institutional Trader Advisory Committees, the FINRA Market Regulation Committee and the National and Denver Security Traders Association.

The TRADE would like to extend a hearty congratulations to Royal and wish him a happy retirement.

The post Dan Royal accepts Lifetime Achievement Award at Leaders in Trading New York 2024 appeared first on The TRADE.

A new report from Coalition Greenwich found that buy-side comments with respect to MDPs reflect that the ability to access dealer quotes while keeping them in competition, helps optimise trading.

The growing use of MDPs from the buy-side is driving electronic trading overall and supports their growing focus on best execution.

Over the next year, 34% of respondents stated that their use of MDPs would increase, while conversely, only 5% thought there would be a reduction.

Comparatively, only 16% stated they would increase their use of single-dealer platforms, with 24% stating they would reduce their use of SDPs.

The usage of manual forms of trading, such as chat and voice, are also anticipated to decline, with 23% expecting to decrease their use of chat and 31% decreasing their use of voice in the next year.

“Using electronic execution methods provides value beyond a single trade execution. For example, it is easier to store and capture data about the bids received from dealers when receiving them electronically,” said Coalition Greenwich in its report.

“This ultimately helps a buy-side firm evaluate a broker, whether they executed a particular trade or not.”

When evaluating a firm’s panel of dealers, a buy-side desk may take into consideration various reasons why it may redirect its flow from one to another. Coalition Greenwich found that there were two key reasons why a trader may reduce flow to a dealer: namely, pricing and quality of institutional coverage.

When asked why the buy-side might redirect trade flow, just over 40% of respondents noted pricing as a key consideration. This comes as no surprise with growing concerns from the buy-side about best execution and investments in tools such as TCA to help evaluate their counterparties.

The quality of sales and relationship management was the second highest reason noted by respondents, with 22% citing it as an important element.

The common thread connecting the FX discussion on dealers and MDPs is competition. End users want their dealers in competition with each other to both receive favourable pricing on individual trades and reduce dependence on an individual counterparty, noted Coalition Greenwich.

Elsewhere in the report, Coalition Greenwich found that single-dealer platforms (SDPs) will continue to play a role in the FX trading ecosystem, particularly for complex trades and structures.

However, it was noted that MDPs are likely to remain the preferred choice for routine trades and spot execution.

“MDPs offer a range of benefits, including ease of use, workflow integration and best execution,” said Stephen Bruel, senior analyst on the Market Structure and Technology team at Coalition Greenwich.

“They are an attractive option for buy-side traders who want to optimise their trading and achieve best execution.”

The post Usage of multi-dealer platforms expected to increase as FX traders seek best execution appeared first on The TRADE.

Galina Dimitrova

Specifically, the trade body is calling for cooperation on the automation of IPOs and block trades as the market seeks increasingly efficient and competitive processes through modernised infrastructure.

The IA paper includes a call to action for both sides for a projected smooth and successful transition to automation.

Galina Dimitrova, director, investment and capital markets at the IA, explained: “[…] IPO and secondary market placements remain one of the few areas in modern capital markets that are still reliant on manual processing to communicate demand. It’s high time that this process is modernised. We are therefore calling for buy- and sell-side collaboration to embrace technological advancements and automate the IPO process.

“Streamlining the process with electric orders would enhance efficiency, reduce risk and provide greater transparency for end investors.” 

When it came to solutions, the IA pointed to both the buy- and sell-side moving away from in-house building of systems and more subscribing to service vendors that provide electronic new deals allocation platforms. 

The paper also highlighted the relevance of a unified approach, pinpointing the FIX Trading Community protocol specifically when it came to automation – providing a standardised communication system. 

Read more: Fireside Friday with… FIX Trading Community’s Jim Kaye

Jim Kaye, Executive Director at the FIX Trading Community, added: “This is an area that is ripe for electronification – we welcome this initiative and stand ready to leverage the expertise of our member base. 

“Our history of designing standards to automate trading shows what’s possible and we believe automation of the IPO process is achievable when you have the right people behind it.”

The post Buy- and sell-side cooperation on IPOs and block trades key to modernising UK capital market says Investment Association appeared first on The TRADE.

A BlackRock spokesperson confirmed his departure. His next role is unconfirmed. The TRADE understands it is outside of trading.

Mayston has been with BlackRock for almost two decades, originally joining in 2006 as a quantitative alpha and execution researcher.

He took on the role of global head of trading research in 2013 before assuming his most recent and current role as electronic trading and market structure head for EMEA in 2016.

His responsibilities will be transferred to other members of the global trading team at BlackRock, The TRADE understands.

The institution also reshuffled its equity trading leadership earlier this year. As revealed by The TRADE in April, BlackRock appointed Nick Craze as head of the EMEA equity trading desk following the promotion of Paul Battams to head of international equity trading.

Craze had been on the desk for more than 15 years and prior to this promotion oversaw the ‘model and derivatives group’ on the BlackRock EMEA equity desk since 2016.

That team was responsible for trading European equity derivatives, as well as all of BlackRock’s European equity index, transitions and quantitative active strategies.

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