Insights
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Global FX Code Gains Adoption but Last Look is a Thorny Issue
Over 200 market participants have signed the FX Global Code of Conduct, a voluntary set of principles published a year ago to restore trust and curb bad behavior in the wholesale foreign exchange market.
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Equity Market Innovation Leads to Venue Proliferation
Several startups are planning to launch either new venues or order types, and even listing standards, to solve problems in US equity trading. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken investigates.
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SEC Steers Pilot on Equity Trading Fees and Rebates Amid Headwinds
Diving into one of the more controversial issues in equity market structure, U.S. regulators are moving forward with the transaction-fee pilot that will force stock exchanges to lower the fee caps on rebates they pay to brokers and market makers.
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MiFID II Post-Mortem Cites Delays on LEIs and Data Quality as Key Challenge
With the rollout of such a massive regulation as MiFID II, there are bound to be some hiccups, but so far firms are mainly wrestling with trade reporting and data quality issues. That sentiment was expressed on a webinar hosted by A-Team Group, MiFID II Trading Technology Requirements: What Worked and What Hasn’t? in which panelists aired their views on the most challenging aspects of the implementation and areas that need improvement.
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MiFID II’s Trading Hereafter: Systematic Internalizers & Block Venues
MiFID II went live on Jan. 3 without much fanfare, but the EU regulation is already shifting trading behavior toward Large-in-Scale block trading venues and new venues called systematic internalizers run by banks and high frequency trading firms. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken examines.
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Artificial Intelligence Gains Momentum: From Machine Learning to Deep Learning
Among the key benefits of artificial intelligence is that it can analyze large volumes of structured and unstructured data more quickly than humans do, which can boost productivity. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken examines.
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Electronic Corporate Bond Trading at the Crossroads
The conversation in electronic corporate bond trading has shifted away from focusing strictly on liquidity to gathering data and analyzing relative bond pricing. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken investigates.
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Alt Data on the March with Machine Learning
The explosion of alternative data sources, such as satellite images, sentiment analysis, and geolocation data, is having a profound impact on the field of quantitative investing. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken investigates.
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Seeking Clarity on MiFID II Inducement Trading Rules
With MIFID II’s rules on inducements now a reality, buy-side firms are paying close attention to the costs associated with their front-office trading platforms and analytics. The EU regulation, which took effect on Jan. 3, could draw scrutiny to execution services and tools that are sponsored by brokers, such as order management and execution management systems as well as trade analytics. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken investigates.
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Our Top 10 FlexAdvantage Blog Stories for 2017
2017 has been an interesting year for the FlexAdvantage blog’s coverage of industry news. Government regulations, such as MiFID II and the fixed income trading protocols, were obvious highlights, as were issues concerning data usage, the advent of augmented reality in trading, fragmentation in the options markets, and trends in currency markets. Check out our countdown of the Top 10 FlexAdvantage Blog posts for 2017.
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Wrestling with OMS and EMS Decisions
Many asset managers are wrestling with the decision on whether to keep the order management system (OMS) and execution management system (EMS) as two separate best-of-breed systems, or switch to a single unified platform known as the OEMS. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken investigates.
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Is Market Structure Tied up in Knots?
With a new head of trading and markets at the SEC, there is some optimism that some of the complex market structure issues – such as make-taker incentives and sky-high market data costs — will be looked at in 2018. FlexTrade’s Ivy Schmerken covers the key takeaways on what matters to buy-side and sell-side traders, as discussed at Traders’ Magazine’s Nov. 7 Second Inaugural Market Structure Equity Town Hall.