Future Alpha 2026, formerly known as Quant Strats, will take place March 31 and April 1 in New York. About 55% of conference attendees are expected from the buy side, 20% from the sell side and market makers, and 20% from data and solutions providers.
Trading Technologies is a representative from the latter group and a Future Alpha sponsor. Traders Magazine caught up with Alun Green, EVP and Managing Director, Futures and Options at TT, for an event preview from TT’s perspective.
What is Trading Technologies’ interest in Future Alpha?
We want to talk about how our algo offerings help clients generate alpha.
At Trading Technologies we are celebrated for our class-leading futures and options execution tools, but we have a long history in data analysis and algo generation across all asset classes.
We have a rich pool of data that we use to develop and train our different algos; clients are getting really good execution and we are seeing increased interest in those strategies. And we’re not staying static – we invest heavily in algo development, ensuring they continue to perform.
So at Future Alpha we’re hoping to bring more visibility to this business to a wider group, particularly buy-side firms, and show that we have some really good execution tools for a whole variety of different scenarios.
As we expand beyond our traditional equity options and F&O world, one area where we are pioneering the use of algos is in the intraday energy space. We launched in this market in Europe a couple years ago, and we’re seeing increased activity for all of our execution platforms as we continue to build out a tailored offering.
For which market participants are TT’s algo offerings most relevant?
It’s more for systematics rather than longs. We do have algorithms that are tailored to roles, and there are definitely use cases that are appropriate for a long-only asset manager. But most algo clients are systematics that generate returns through trading strategies rather than portfolio strategies.
How does transaction cost analysis (TCA) fit in with algo discussions?
TCA has evolved, although some people still look at it as sort of a tick-box that just shows whether they get good execution. But we are seeing smart traders looking at TCA to evaluate performance across bank algos, third-party algos, and even homegrown algos as well. And we’re able to look at and mine data for signals, which we are starting to launch in the TCA space and can talk more about.
As a theme, it’s about taking things that were just reporting-type activities, and helping people use those to generate better performance and better utilization. We are trying to provide better tools not just to execute, but also to make decisions about what and how to execute.
Alpha, risk, and technology are the broad themes of Future Alpha. What are some of TT’s capabilities in these areas?
Our TT Trade Surveillance product has a significant amount of AI and machine learning at its core. This ensures that whether you’re a buy side, sell side, or even an exchange, you are protecting yourself and the market from bad players and inadvertent issues that come up, especially if you’re using a combination of trading methods. For example, if you have algorithmic trading alongside screen-based trading, having the right surveillance product can prevent you from tripping over issues.
OpenGamma, which we acquired in December, is a counterparty risk management product. We talk about it in terms of margin reduction and capital utilization, but that product can also stress-test your portfolio, so you can see what the exchange or bilateral margin requirements are going to be, and predict whether you’ll have enough capital or collateral to cover potential margin shocks.
For the technology theme, AI has really come on the scene in a big way over the past few years, but TT has been using AI and machine learning for more than 10 years and we are pioneers in the space. Trading Technologies is a technology company – the clue is in the name! We tend to not emphasize that, because what’s important to us is that we use technology like AI and cloud to solve real-world client problems, rather than saying ‘here’s a shiny new toy, let’s see what we can do with it.’
We are continually looking for the next cutting-edge technology that would be appropriate to add into our suite, in the context of actually trying to solve a business problem, not just to show off our technical skills.
