valantic FSA Partners with Nasdaq to Develop Nasdaq Rates Trader for Nordic and Baltic Markets

valantic FSA, the electronic trading and automation solutions provider, has announced a partnership with Nasdaq to develop Nasdaq Rates Trader, a new web-based user interface for Nasdaq’s Nordic and Baltic fixed income markets. The interface will offer access to Nasdaq’s data and trading functionalities through a modern and intuitive front-end.

Key features include advanced data visualisation and customisable workspaces. The beta testing phase for the new UI is scheduled to begin in February 2025, with a full launch planned for October 2025.

Horizon Trading Solutions Launches Mutualised Hosting Services in Partnership with TNS

Electronic trading and algorithmic technology provider Horizon Trading Solutions has partnered with financial market infrastructure vendor Transaction Network Services (TNS), to launch its new mutualised hosting services.

The collaboration allows Horizon to utilise TNS’ robust hosting and hardware solutions as a colocation provider, enabling on-premise services at the Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX) data centre for multiple clients. This partnership aims to enhance Horizon’s service capabilities, offering clients reduced latency and improved time to market at competitive prices.

TNS, with its extensive experience in the Asia Pacific financial markets and partnerships with key institutions like HKEX, SGX, and JPX, aims to provide traders quick access to these markets with lower total ownership costs. This expansion reinforces the company’s commitment to the region, while strengthening Horizon’s service offerings.

Abaxx Commodity Futures Exchange Adopts ION’s XTP Technology for Energy Transition Markets

The Abaxx Commodity Futures Exchange and Clearinghouse has selected ION’s XTP technology to support its new market initiatives aimed at the ongoing energy transition. The Abaxx Exchange, which commenced trading in Singapore on 28 June, has collaborated with ION to deliver secure and scalable post-trade clearing and risk management solutions.

The Abaxx Exchange introduces five new centrally cleared, physically deliverable commodity futures contracts, enhancing market participants’ ability to manage energy transition strategies with improved price discovery and risk management tools. These contracts aim to establish benchmarks for global LNG and voluntary carbon markets, with future plans to include battery metals.

ION’s XTP technology is used by exchange clearing members, providing functionalities such as real-time position valuations, margining, and commission calculations. It also facilitates end-of-day processes including settlement calculations and report generation, ensuring robust support for the exchange’s operations.

Iress and Dow Jones Enhance Real-Time Market News Integration

Iress has extended its partnership with Dow Jones Newswires, enabling Iress news subscribers to access real-time market news across all asset classes and geographies. This service will be seamlessly integrated into customer workflows through Iress’s market data and trading software.

The partnership ensures that Iress’s global market data and trading customers can access premium content from Dow Jones Newswires, including selected articles from The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, and Investor’s Business Daily.

The collaboration aims to deliver enhanced market insights, leveraging Dow Jones’s global coverage and local reporting expertise in key markets such as Australia.

Iress’s CEO, Global Trading and Market Data, Jason Hoang commented: “It’s of critical importance that traders have access to trusted, accurate and timely information. Through this partnership, we believe that our clients can be confident that the information they use through Iress’s software is of the highest calibre and can be relied upon to help make better trading decisions.”

Dow Jones Newswires’ General Manager, Joe Cappitelli, added: “By integrating our real-time market news directly into customer workflows, Iress is creating even more value for their clients, enhancing their user experience and helping them make smarter investment decisions.”

DTCC Launches Public-Facing VaR Calculator for FICC

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has introduced a new public-facing Value at Risk (VaR) calculator, designed to assist market participants in assessing potential margin and Clearing Fund obligations associated with membership in DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) Government Securities Division (GSD).

The launch of the tool is timely, with U.S. Treasury clearing activity through FICC projected to increase by $4 trillion daily following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s expanded clearing mandate set for 2025 and 2026. DTCC’s VaR calculator enables firms to determine VaR and potential margin obligations for simulated portfolios accurately.

The calculator utilises FICC’s VaR methodology to allow users to estimate potential margin requirements based on given positions and market values. The calculator considers factors such as historical data, volatility and confidence levels to estimate VaR, increasing market transparency.

Tim Hulse, Managing Director, Financial Risk & Governance, at DTCC commented: “FICC understands the urgency and importance of evaluating firms’ risk exposure associated with the expansion of U.S. Treasury Clearing. The VaR calculator provides market participants with increased transparency into these obligations.”

This initiative underscores DTCC’s commitment to enhancing tools and access methods in support of the forthcoming expansion in U.S. Treasury clearing activity.

Substantive Research Reveals Increase in Investment Research Spending

Substantive Research, the research and data spend analytics provider, has released findings from its latest survey on investment research pricing, budgeting, and consumption for the first half of 2024. The survey assesses the impact of the FCA’s April 2024 Consultation Paper on “Payment Optionality for Investment Research,” which has sparked debate over whether European asset managers should revert research costs back to end investors after six years of absorbing these expenses due to MiFID II.

Key findings indicate an overall 2.2% increase in research budgets globally, with US budgets rising 15% as a proportion of assets under management (AUM) and European budgets increasing by 4%. Brokers continue to dominate, capturing 85% of the annual spend, albeit with a slight decrease, while spending on analytics and research tooling grows. The top 10 brokers maintain a significant share, slightly rising to 54.9%. This evolving landscape suggests a shift towards greater consumption and varied pricing strategies within the research market, with potential competitive impacts from the FCA’s proposed reforms.

Global InterXchange Launches Groundbreaking Dark Fiber Route Across Hudson River

Global InterXchange, LLC (GIX) has launched the first privately owned, carrier-neutral dark fibre route across the Hudson River in two decades. The new high-speed network connects Digital Realty’s JFK12 data centre at 60 Hudson Street in Manhattan with Equinix’s NY1 at 165 Halsey Street in New Jersey, utilising advanced fibre technologies and equipment that offer lower latency and increased network diversity. The project is a result of a public-private partnership with the Port Authority of NY and NJ.

The GIX dark fibre route features two unique paths into 60 Hudson Street and utilises Prysmian fibre cable with Corning SMF-28 Ultra glass, providing significant network resilience and boosting efficiency for financial, telecom, and colocation facilities. Future plans include expanding into additional tunnels, continuing GIX’s commitment to innovative, high-speed connectivity solutions for various industries, including global carriers, AI companies, and financial institutions.

PATH Project Manager Paul Lombardi commented: “Data has become a critical aspect of business and trade in this age of AI, with growing volumes of data driving the need for seamless transport of that data. This work ensures we can support the modernisation of critical infrastructure to support current and future digital requirements and attract cutting-edge businesses.”

FairXchange Unveils AI-Powered Horizon Sentinel for Enhanced Liquidity Monitoring

FairXchange, the data science firm specialising in FX markets and part of the United Fintech Group, has launched Horizon Sentinel, an AI-driven alerting tool designed to instantly identify commercially relevant changes in a financial institution’s liquidity and counterparty activity. Sentinel aims to significantly reduce the time spent on analysing FX liquidity data, enabling financial institutions to maximise identified opportunities. The tool automatically notifies compliance and management teams of specific changes such as significant transaction cost variations or notable client trading activity shifts.

Available as an optional module within the Horizon data analytics platform, Horizon Sentinel complements FairXchange’s existing analytics by providing rigorous period-to-period comparisons and data-driven insights. The tool has been successfully trialled by several long-standing clients, including Sucden Financial.

Guy Hopkins, Founder and CEO of FairXchange, commented: “During our testing period, Sentinel has had an overwhelmingly positive response, transforming conversations between liquidity consumers and liquidity providers.  In high complexity trading environments, it is becoming progressively harder for people to keep on top of all the recent developments. Sentinel watches your business for you and provides timely, automated notification of important changes as soon as they occur. This improves productivity, substantially reduces opportunity cost and allows clients to focus on what adds the most value both to their own firm and their counterparties”.

Wayne Roworth, Global Head of FX at Sucden Financial, added: “We have been actively using the Sentinel AI tool in Horizon for several months, and it has had a substantial positive impact on our business. Our liquidity providers very much value the fact that we can play an active role in monitoring the flow, highlighting areas of potential concern that we can then work on together.  The dialogue that this data facilitates, and the speed with which we can act upon it, has resulted in numerous improvements to our liquidity that have allowed us to increase our client volumes and associated revenues.”

Abaxx Exchange Selects Eventus for Trade Surveillance

Abaxx Exchange, a new marketplace based in Singapore, has chosen Eventus to provide its trade surveillance platform. Abaxx Exchange commenced trading on June 28, 2024, offering global futures on energy, metals, and other energy transition-focused commodities, starting with liquified natural gas (LNG) and carbon, with plans to introduce battery metals soon.

Abaxx Exchange, under the majority ownership of Abaxx Singapore Pte Ltd., is the first new regulated exchange and clearinghouse focused on physical commodities to be built from the ground up in over a decade. The exchange sought a robust, customisable, and scalable market surveillance tool that could be quickly and easily implemented. Eventus’ Validus platform was selected for its flexibility, strong workflow automation, and the support of an experienced and responsive team.

Eventus CEO Travis Schwab commented: “We are incredibly honoured that Abaxx has entrusted our team to provide the backbone of its critical trade surveillance function through the Validus platform. The innovative commodity exchange has generated significant interest in the industry. Market integrity is a high priority for the exchange, and Abaxx will benefit from our expertise and high-performance surveillance technology used by marketplaces and leading financial institutions across the globe.”

The deployment of the Validus platform marks a significant step in ensuring that Abaxx Exchange can maintain rigorous surveillance and control over its market activities, providing a secure and efficient trading environment for its participants.

Avelacom Expands Low Latency Solutions with RCB Certification for Brazil Stock Exchange Access

Avelacom has expanded its low latency solution portfolio by becoming a certified B3 Communications Network provider (RCB) for the Brazil Stock Exchange (B3). The certification allows Avelacom to offer Direct Market Access to B3’s matching engine, enhancing the company’s real-time market data and trading solutions without clients requiring additional infrastructure. The new service aims to provide a cost-efficient and scalable alternative to remote market access, optimising latency and setup processes via virtual connections.

By incorporating RCB services, Avelacom can facilitate seamless data transfer between global financial hubs, supporting rapid activation of trading and market data services. This expansion aligns with the growing popularity of Brazil’s markets, enabling clients worldwide to engage with B3’s extensive range of markets, including equities, derivatives, digital assets, and OTC products.

Aleksey Larichev, CEO of Avelacom, commented: “Becoming an RCB authorised party allows us to provide more flexible and cost-effective solutions with various capacity options, helping financial firms operate more efficiently. With our network’s global coverage, clients from Asia, EMEA, and North America can access B3’s trading platform with the ease of cloud-based solutions.”

Marcos Guimaraes, Managing Director of Avelacom, LATAM, said: “With this development, B3 markets becomes available at all markets on Avelacom´s global network. It also lowers the barrier of entering B3’s market from abroad by facilitating access to the trading floor and lowering costs for local brokers and trading participants.”

Coming hot on the heels of the company’s new routes between Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore, this new project included significant investments in network infrastructure to support disaster recovery services at B3’s primary and secondary data centres.