New research released by FISrevealed that only 25% of buy-side and sell-side executives surveyed believe their firms have the technology capability to support their growth ambitions.
The FIS report also found that firms with the strongest performance in key operational growth areas, such as automation, data management and innovation, are significantly more likely to have grown their assets under management over the past year.
The findings are part of the first FIS Readiness Report, The Hunt for Growth, which surveyed 1,000 C-suite and senior executives across the buy-side and sell-side of the financial services market. Other key findings of the report were:
Nearly half (47%) of those surveyed say the economic outlook will create growth opportunities over the next year.
Firms are prioritizing new client acquisition and better operating margins in the hunt for growth.
Half of respondents (50%) say new client acquisition is one of their top three growth objectives for the next 12 months.
The results are compelling because, despite all of the headlines around fintech disruption and the need to automate, many financial institutions acknowledge that they are still not where they ought to be when it comes to embracing technology and operations, said Martin Boyd, executive director and head of I&W Strategy at FIS. Those firms who are investing for the future by taking a lead in automation, data and emerging technology are outperforming their peers in revenue growth, pointing to a tech readiness dividend for forward looking buy-side and sell-side firms.
The FIS report includes a Growth-Readiness Tracker that scored firms against six equally weighted operational enablers of growth: automation, data management, innovation, use of emerging technologies, talent management and focus on client experience.
The report found that firms that scored at the top 20% of the Growth-Readiness Tracker are significantly outpacing their competitors in driving growth. Among these Growth-Readiness Leaders, the FIS research found:
47% have grown assets under management by 5% or more in the last 12 months;
More than a third (37%) have implemented artificial intelligence or machine learning in their business versus just 6% of the rest of the sector;
More than four in 10 (41%) growth leaders are currently testing blockchain technology versus less than a fifth (19%) of other institutions.
What is clear from this research, Boyd added, is that those firms that can marry enabling technologies – such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain and mobile – with new business models are reaping dividends in terms of competitive advantage.
RedlineTrading Solutions, the provider of high-performance market data and order execution systems for automated trading, announced updated InRush feed handlers for European trading venues as the industry prepares for MiFID II compliance in January 2018.
Next-generation exchange platforms, originally designed to improve throughput and latency, are now also serving as the mechanism for meeting the looming mandates of MiFID II regulations, said Matt Sexton, CTO of Redline. Redline is supporting our customers with the rollout of new feed handlers for virtually every exchange in Europe this year, as well as providing the tools and infrastructure needed to help meet MiFID II testing requirements, he adds.
This month the London Stock Exchange decommissioned their legacy MITCH interface and are now fully transitioned to their new Group Ticker Plant (GTP). Features for MiFID II compliance include new data types, updated trade and transaction fields, indicative quote information, and message timestamps adhering to required accuracy levels.
Euronexts new Optiq Market Data Gateway went into pre-production testing a week ago for cash markets (July for derivative markets). Optiq increases throughput with more predictable latency, ensures compliance with MiFID II regulations, and harmonises Euronexts cash and derivative messaging model. Changes driven by MiFID II include disaggregation of market data channels for affordability and new order and trade fields for transparency.
Deutsche Brse is migrating their Xetra cash markets venue (XETR) to the modern T7 Release 5.0 trading architecture now, in preparation for the start of trading in equities and ETFs in early July. T7 and the CEF Core data feed will be enhanced later this year for compliance to MiFID II requirements.
Other European exchanges moving this fall to new or updated protocols for MiFID II compliance include Nasdaq OMX Nordic (GCF 3.5), Vienna Stock Exchange (T7) and SIX Swiss Exchange (SMR7).
Redlines roadmap to upgrade support for affected European equity and derivative exchanges this year will help ensure customer continuity in trading and their compliance with MiFID II when it goes into effect in early January.
ETF inflows that is, according to State Street Global Advisors, which reported that through the first six months of 2017, US-listed ETFs have amassed over $245 billion of inflows – the best start to a year in the ETF industrys 24 years.
Matthew Bartolini, Head of SPDR Americas Research at SSGA said that after a record-setting 2016, fixed income and equity ETFs have showed no signs of slowing down.Through the first six months of 2017, he reported that fixed income ETF inflows have topped $70 billion and equity inflows are even more impressive.
Equity ETFs have played a key part in sending ETF assets to all-time highs and new records with $172 billion of inflows in the first half of the year, Bartolini said. The one quarter of a trillion dollars deposited into ETFs this year equates to almost 10 percent of the assets under management at the start of the year. The previous highest percentage gain occurred in 2012, when ETFs took in 7 percent of start of year assets through the first six months of the year.
Within equities on the sector level, investors have favored Technology, Financials and Healthcare ETFs, which attracted $5.3 billion, $3.8 billion and $3.2 billion respectively year to date.
Bartolini added that equities overall have seen $172 billion in inflows this year or 50% of last years entire take. This is a staggering feat, he said, considering that at this juncture in 2016, equity inflows were actually negative.
In looking at fixed income ETFs, Bartolini noted that bond fund inflows also show no sign of slowing down.
Through the first six months of the year, with fixed income flows at the $70 billion inflows mark so far, they are on a pace to shatter all records as if they were Mike Tyson in the late Eighties, he said.
Fixed income ETF demand, he continued, was rooted in several factors; inertia for the asset class already in place, low cost and efficient beta exposure in a low rate environment, as well as protection from potential equity drawdowns or geopolitical risks.
Also, investors deposited over $20 billion into international ETFs in June and over $80 billion through the first six months of the year-marking the best start to a year ever for international funds.
The sift overseas was broad based, as emerging market fund flows topped $10 billion for the second quarter in a row, and are off to their best first half gain ever, Bartolini said. Even currency hedged ETFs, a segment which has somewhat been under pressure as the dollar has shrunk 6.44 percent this year, were able to get in on the action with almost $2 billion in inflows year to date.
Vela Trading Technologies LLC, a high performance trading, market data, and analytics technology firm, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Object Trading, a global provider of a fully-managed Direct Market Access (DMA) platform, pre-trade risk controls, and analytics applications.
This acquisition further strengthens Velas high-performance trading and market data technology products and services, delivering an extensive set of solutions across the entire electronic trading workflow to help clients reduce total cost of ownership, comply with ever-changing regulatory requirements, and evolve their global electronic trading strategies.
The addition of Object Trading and OptionsCity enables Vela to provide an end-to-end trading platform with global, multi-asset class coverage; high-performance, low-latency market access and market data; industry leading pre-trade risk controls; drop copy functionality; post-trade processing; trading analytics; plus, a front-end GUI for price discovery, workflow management, and order entry.
Jennifer Nayar, CEO of Vela, said, This acquisition of Object Trading is part of our strategic plan to grow our trading technology portfolio. It strengthens our high-performance trading solutions and will accelerate our market access Platform-as-a-Service strategy with additional pre-trade risk and analytics functionality. She added, Together with Object Trading and OptionsCity, Vela further expands our products and services suite bringing innovative technologies and cost-effective solutions to our clients around the world.
Steve Woodyatt, CEO & Chairman of Object Trading commented: We are very excited to join the Vela team. He added, As part of the larger organization, we will be able to deliver a wide range of solutions to the markets, helping clients to support key obligations to comply with evolving regulatory requirements, adopt global electronic trading strategies, and manage costs.
The Object Trading transaction is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. It is expected to close in early Q3 2017.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP served as Velas legal advisors in the transaction. Goldenhill International M&A Advisors served as Object Tradings strategic advisors; and PwC acted as Object Tradings legal and financial advisors.
The OptionsCity transaction, which was announced on June 20, 2017, has closed.
Industry consultancy JWG announced the results of a recent survey focused on the buy side and its readiness for the incoming Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), effective from January 3, 2018.
The bottom line, according to JWG is that90% of buy-side firms believe they are at either high or medium risk of not being compliant by the January 2018 deadline, despite this date having already been delayed by a year. Significantly, with just over six months to go, a large amount of the industry appears to be overstretched and under-prepared. It is imperative that firms fully understand the requirements of the regulation and take their MiFID II compliance seriously, or prepare for penalties come 140 working days from now.
Among those respondents to the survey, about one-third had less than 1 billion of assets under management (AUM), one-third had between 5 billion and 50 billion AUM and the remaining one-third had between 50 billion and 500 billion AUM. However, the level of preparedness was not found to be dependent on the size of the firm; rather, 48% of buy-side firms regardless of size are implementing on a budget of less than 2 million and 45% are attempting to implement MiFID II with a team of less than five people. Meanwhile, other financial institutions averaged team sizes of between 21 and 49, and 15% of respondents have a budget of over 10 million. With just under a third of firms saying that they are actively seeking benefit from MiFID II, those who are trailing behind risk losing a competitive edge if they do not smarten up their MiFID programmes.
In analysing the results, JWG classified respondents into three key MiFID II profiles. First, those that fully understand the requirements and are making the right decisions for implementation. Secondly, those with a minimum compliance perspective who do not fully consider the requirements as applying to them. For example, 45% of all respondents still have not determined how exactly the obligations affect their firm. And finally, those who gave responses reflecting they do not understand the requirements, have not resourced an implementation program, and are at the highest risk of not being compliant. Concerningly, the 10% of respondents that did say they were at low risk are also those that have the smallest budget, suggesting that these institutions have not yet understood the impact of the MiFID II regulation.
How the buy-side works with vendors also varies considerably across the different elements of the regulation. Although the results show an uptake in smart technological methods of managing requirements they also show that a majority (two-thirds) continue to rely on manual, resource intensive and ineffective routes to compliance.
The largest share of respondents, 25%, claim that reporting is by far the most outsourced of all their MiFID II requirements, however there is also a substantial amount of demand for record keeping and data management solutions. A small number of firms have outsourced their regulatory change management as a whole, but most appear to be keeping issues such as research, trading and client management in house at present. This may be because in a number of areas – including research, inducements, and best execution – 25% of firms have not finished analysing the requirements, underlining a lack of preparedness and perhaps a focus on those areas that are already better understood.
With only a few thousand hours to implementation, it is very troubling that the buy-side does not see itself compliant with MiFID II, said PJ Di Giammarino, CEO of JWG. With small teams and a DIY approach it would appear many are missing the benefit of collaborative efforts and third party solutions. A common view of the 1.4 million paragraphs of MiFID II is critical for firms on the buy-side to avoid harsh penalties from the regulator and lose out to their competition next year.
Come January 1, traders are likely to find that massive numbers of European stocks will be banned from the most-popular methods of dark trading. Thats the conclusion of a new Rosenblatt Securities report analyzing the potential impact of dark-pool regulations set to go live next year as part of revisions to the European Unions Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.
The report, titled Shedding Light on MiFID IIs Dark Volume Caps, takes an in-depth look at how the new rules could affect trading in 757 stocks across 18 major European indexes. Bats Europe, a CBOE Holdings, Inc. company and the regions largest equities exchange operator, provided the data for the report.
The double volume-cap rules trigger bans on certain types of dark trading when such transactions account for 4% of the total activity (over the past 12 months) in that security on an individual dark venue, or 8% of total trading in that stock market-wide. Securities breaching the 4% venue-specific cap are subject to a 6-month ban on the venue in question. Issues exceeding the 8% market-wide cap trigger a 6-month dark-trading ban market-wide.
Key findings from the report include:
Nearly three-quarters of all stocks measured breached the 8% market-wide cap
UK and Irish stocks were heavily affected – 89% of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 stocks, and 85% of Irelands ISEQ 20 constituents, exceeded the 8% cap
Less-liquid issues are likely to suffer disproportionately under the caps: 83% of mid-cap index constituents breached the 8% threshold, compared with 67% of large-cap index constituents
Individual dark pools surpassed 4% of total volume in a security 394 times, but there were only two instances in which an issue that did not trigger the 8% threshold breached the 4% cap
The dark volume caps are probably the most consequential aspect of MiFID II for equity traders on day one, but theres been very little visibility into how impactful theyll be, said Justin Schack, a Managing Director and Partner at Rosenblatt who heads the firms market-structure group. We hope this report will illuminate things for institutional investors, as well as other market participants.
Its particularly notable that the caps appear likely to disproportionately affect less-liquid stocks, said Anish Puaar, Vice President and European Market Structure Analyst at Rosenblatt, who authored the report. These names are already difficult to trade, which makes dark pools an appealing alternative for buy-side traders seeking to minimize information leakage and market impact. It will be interesting to see how restrictions on trading these stocks in the dark affect investor outcomes under MiFID II.
The mantra in real estate historically has been location, location, location. In trading, its largely connectivity, connectivity, connectivity. Those who connect fastest, most efficiently and securely can reap huge gains versus those who dont.
In recent years, the choice in offerings for the buy-side has exploded, providing a bevy of options for connecting to the markets.
Starting in the early 2000s, connectivity for the buy-side trader mainly consisted of using a peer-to-peer network (P2P) to connect to their broker counterparties. These networks, often provided as part of the OMS offering, were reliable but costly and difficult to manage.
But by the middle of the decade P2P gave way to a new and unique way of order routing and transmission – the hub-and-spoke method – where the buy-side could plug into a single central distribution channel point and let it transmit orders to multiple sell-side destinations. Pioneered by NYFIX, the hub-and-spoke model provided a cheaper, faster and more uniform and secure method for trading.
These days, the buy-sides needs have gotten more complex – sending out thousands of orders per second, to myriad brokers and lit and dark destinations – forcing networks to become faster, more technologically advanced, secure and reliable. NYFIX, now owned by technology provider Ullink, remains a major player, but the systems it and others offer have evolved tremendously.
Not Your Fathers Network
Todays connectivity networks are multi-service and multi-asset, making them a one-stop shop of services catering to the needs of the buy-side trader. Think of these new networks as a Wal Mart for the buy-side; not only is there routing, but additional services such as trade cost analysis, network analytics, managed support and a bevy of others.
The buy-sides demands have changed as well – stringent performance, reliability, transparency, ease of use and customer support requirements must be met by providers of these services. Today NYFIX is joined by a slew of other providers, including Itiviti, Thomson Reuters Autex, FIX Flyer and LiquidityBook, seeking to meet the buy-sides FIX connectivity demands, which have never been greater.
The buy-side typically dictates the network vendor to use for connectivity, George Rosenberger, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Managed Services at Itiviti, told Traders Magazine. That decision can be based on several factors such as the buy-sides view on network security, their OMS provider and its affiliation/relationship with the network and now more than ever, most OMS vendors also provide a their own private-labelled version of a network. Those OMS vendors make it commercially attractive for the buy-side to also use their network, which is subsidized by charging the brokers for each connection.
Itivitis Rosenberger explained the move to the new single hub model versus P2P connectivity offers quicker onboarding of clients, client -centric security (think transport layer security), no firewall changes and there are less sessions to monitor from an operational perspective.
The point-to-point networks do offer more flexibility when it comes to customization and security of the connection, Rosenberger began.The cost difference between the two models is very subjective based on the broker dealers commercial agreement with each provider.Often, the vendors introduce price tiers based on the overall number of connections to that broker so the more connections you have with the vendor, the cheaper the unit cost gets for each counterparty. This is especially true with the spoke-and-hub providers.They typically start at a higher rate per connection than the point-to-point providers but based on the overall number of connections, the rate drops as they work through various volume tiers of connections and often the blended rate can come close to if not surpass the cost of the point-to-point provider.
The Road Ahead
So, what are the biggest challenges for todays connectivity providers?
Rosenberger explained that the key metric for a spoke-and-hub provider is how many counterparties are on their network.
Network providers work hard to add counterparties because someone would certainly be more comfortable doing business with a vendor who has 500+ counterparties on their network vs 100 counterparties. Expanding their network is always a business challenge.
Beyond that, he added that it is ensuring that their platform is leveraging the latest technology so that it is performant and flexible enough to adhere to the ever changing business and regulatory environment. NYFIX, Itiviti and others claim few if any service disruptions in recent years, and turnaround for new connections has been reduced to days if not faster.
Security is also paramount, and Ullink stresses that it is a key component to delivering the best experience. In a conversation with Traders Magazine, Richard Bentley, Chief Product Officer at Ullink, explained that NYFIX ensures both the physical and digital security of its platforms and data through leading-edge security technology and processes. It employs a multi-tiered network architecture, use of private networks, encrypted VPNs, secure sockets layer encrypted FIX, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and application layer load balancers to protect the NYFIX Platform and its users.
So where does this leave these connectivity providers now?
The cost of the technology arms race continues to escalate as networks continue to complete for not only the buy-sides dollars and trades but the sell-sides too. But investment in added capabilities must be made deliberately and carefully to ensure providers are not spreading themselves too thin. FinTech providers, like all tech companies, must determine where to draw the limits of their breadth of coverage so they can focus resources on their core competencies, said Allan Goldstein, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at analytics provider Trade Informatics. Consumers of fintech, particularly the buy-side, certainly have a desire to leverage scale and efficiency of multi-product offerings such as multi-asset OMS and EMS. However, quite often breadth of coverage does not always deliver best-of-breed offerings, so consumers must decide when their return on investment is enhanced by choosing from the ala carte menu versus prix fixe.
QuantHouse, a vendor of end-to-end systematic trading solutions including innovative market data services, algo trading platform and infrastructure solutions, today announced the launch of its algo-trading stress testing solution to help financial firms meet their MiFID II testing requirements. Hosting the new platform at Interxion in London, ensures that all QuantHouse and Interxion community members benefit from ultra-low latency access to the new solution.
Partnering with Interxion, a provider of carrier and cloud-neutral colocation data centre services in Europe means QuantHouses new stress testing solution is made available via a single cross connect through a single API, enabling clients to rapidly connect to the platform in order to build stress testing scenarios.
As part of the MiFID II regulation coming into effect in January 2018, firms will be required to introduce robust processes into their organisations in order to provide effective control methods over increased market volatility. From 2018, investment firms will be required to therefore stress test their algos by running high trade volume tests using at least twice the highest volume of trading reached by a particular firm over a previous six-month period.
QuantHouse has launched its algo-trading stress testing solution as part of its QuantFEED offering. The solution enables clients to build stress testing scenarios from 2x their highest volume up to 10x peak volume.
Stephane Leroy, Business Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer, QuantHouse,said:QuantHouse is dedicated to supporting clients regulatory needs and our new algo-trading stress testing solution is an example of our commitment to providing this support. The solution enables firms to test their production data up to 10x peak volume replaying market data events to ensure their algorithmic trading system can cope with any peaks in the market. Interxion was the ideal partner to help bring this solution to market, as they provide robust, reliable hosting and provide access to a wide and diverse group of capital markets participants.
Bill Fenick,Strategy Director, Financial Services, Interxion, said: We are delighted to collaborate with QuantHouse and give our clients the ability to connect with their platform rapidly and efficiently through the use of a single API. It is important for us to bring additional services that offer value to our customers wherever possible, and QuantHouses stress testing solution is perfect for our financial services customers looking to fulfil their MiFID II testing requirements.
A wave of consolidation has hit high-speed trading firms and brokers in the past few months, and many are blaming low volatility and weak trading volumes in the face of rising compliance and market data costs.
Starting with electronic market-maker Virtus acquisition of rival KCG in April,Two Sigma Securities buying options market-marker Timber Hill in May, and Cowen gobbling up Convergex a few weeks ago, trading firms are reassessing their business models, including the need for speed.
While speed is still important, and is the way to capture liquidity, high-frequency trading firms are moving away from speed and diversifying into longer duration strategies, said Rob Shapiro, former Chief of Staff at Bloomberg Tradebook, speaking at theIntelligent Trading Summitheld on June 8. The two culprits are regulatory compliance and the increase in market data fees, he said.
The HFT firms have long trafficked in their doing their own thing. Because their models are no longer working, they have become service providers because they need to subsidize their tremendous infrastructure, commented Shapiro. Now high-speed trading firms are going after the buy side and the sell side as service providers of electronic trading for high performance tools, said Shapiro.
However, not everyone agrees that consolidation is a bad thing.
The mergers and acquisitions that were seeing now are not a sign of weakness, said Bill Harts, CEO of Modern Markets Initiative, who pointed to a misunderstanding in the press around the role of electronic market makers.
Its not that the algos werent working. Its that the smarter operators want to extend those algos, extend their capital to more customers, more asset classes, said Harts.
Certainly times are hard and a lot of that has to do with costs, simply, exchange costs, noted Harts. Overall, whether you are a bank, a high-frequency proprietary trader, or an exchange, all the people in the trading ecosystem are constantly thinking about costs, said Harts. Its the trade-off: is one microsecond extra worth it, especially in the context of exchange costs? Every dollar that is spent on exchange fees or connecting to exchanges at high-speed is one dollar less that can be available to go into exchanges pockets, he said.
The pool of U.S. equity commissions earned by brokers contracted last year by more than 11% to $8.4 billion in the first quarter of 2017, from $9.7 billion in Q1 2016, according to areport by Greenwich Associates.
To Reduce Costs, Banks Leverage Algos Across Asset Classes
What I am experiencing is consolidation across the business lines. No single business line can go off and build a massive low-latency infrastructure and support that with revenues. They have to collaborate with the other businesses, said David Winig, Global Head of Market Data Services and Electronic Trading Infrastructure at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Rather than build proprietary execution systems from scratch, large banks are working with third-party vendors and developing knowledge-sharing relationships.
Really these vendors are becoming extensions of the banks, said Haim Bodek, managing partner of Area 11 Research. Launched in 2017, the firm is focused on providing high-frequency trading tools and strategies to institutions and boutique broker-dealers. We think of ourselves as the Intel-inside, said Bodek, referring to the chipmakers popular slogan.
On the futures and options side, a few years ago Citi leveraged third-party providers to create a best-of-breed solution with algorithms and analytics on the back-end, said Andrew Keane, Global Head – Listed Derivatives Algo Trading at Citigroup Futures & OTC Clearing.
It really helped us grow our business, invest wisely and not have this huge overhead in electronic trading in futures, options and switches, which is substantial, said Keane.
To differentiate itself, Citi has put together certain components on the back-end, as a whole package, especially around its algos that are focused on best execution, he said. When you go into the CME to trade a 10-year [Treasury bond futures], the customer can see this is how your algo performed in the market, said Keane.
Buy-Side Firms Turn to Automation
Another seismic trend is the shift of assets from actively managed to quantitative and passively managed funds. The context of traders orders from hedge funds and traditional long-only investment management firms is different than the orders of quantitative traders, said Shapiro. You get massive program trades, cash constraints, dynamic risk optimization, and poor commissions, he said.
One of the areas firms are questioning is the value of speed.
From an automation standpoint on the buy side, everyone is looking at cost, return on investment, and asking, Do I need to be high frequency? said Keane. Some buy-side firms are asking if they can get away with using the brokers DMA FIX infrastructure, he said. Will the brokers DMA FIX infrastructure be faster than high frequency trading? No, but it depends on the game they are in, said Keane.
For quant funds, the bread-and-butter is their alpha-generating signals. Its surprising that many of them are automating simple spreads. They are automating across the board, said Keane. With fewer people on their side, the return on investment is higher and theyre adding more alpha and then giving back to their clients, said Keane.
Cost-Cutting: Sharing Technology from Equities to FX
In response to the buy side embracing automated trading, the sell side is looking to leverage pieces of their technology across different asset classes.
As more markets electronify, were borrowing technology from our equity cash desk and moving it over to our rates desk, said Citis Winig. The FX desk is also trying to share this technology, said Winig. Along with that, were trying to automate rather than take up traders time and effort to price smaller deals, he said. This consolidation across desks is actually good from a software engineering and management standpoint, he said.
However, cutting costs is difficult in a bank where different asset classes want to build their own technology. Some of these builds across multi assets are big builds, said Keane. Its not one-size fits all, he added.
What JPMorgan Chase has done is leverage other pieces of the banks technology across equities and FX and work with other third parties such as exchange data providers. For example, we borrow the equities stuff, not just the algos, to build best-of-breed, Keane said.
Meanwhile, after global stock markets rallied to new highs for the first half of 2017, there were signs that turbulence in the last week of June could be a harbinger of higher volatility, reportedThe Wall Street JournalinGlobal Stocks Post Strongest First Half in Years, Worrying Investors. Uncertainty over Brexit, U.S. corporate earnings, and central bankers adjusting their bond-buying programs, are some of the factors that could lead to choppier markets.
Even if volatility picks up, cost control will continue to consume mind share on Wall Street.
Execution broker ITG announced that Michael Onofrio joined the firm as a Director on the U.S. Electronic coverage team, based in New York. Onofrio, a 10-year industry veteran, comes most recently from JP Morgan where he was Executive Director in charge of the European Equities Electronic Coverage team, based in London. Prior to JP Morgan, Onofrio started his career on the Electronic Coverage team at Bear Stearns.
If you have a new job or promotion to report, let me know at jdantona@marketsmedia.com
Cowen announced that Ann Neidenbach, who joined the firm upon the closing of the Companys recent acquisition of Convergex, has been appointed Managing Director and Chief Information Officer and will direct the firms global strategic technology innovations across all business lines. In addition, Kelly Weigel was promoted to Head of Marketing and Client Services and will oversee the coordination of the firms global corporate access, marketing and communications initiatives. Finally, Patrice Growney Aitken has joined Cowens Equity Sales and Trading team as Managing Director and Head of Mid-Atlantic Equity Sales.
Neidenbach has over 25 years of experience in the global financial industry. As Cowen Managing Director and Chief Information Officer, she will be responsible for providing strategic direction of Cowens technology innovation across all its businesses and will lead the firms software development, information services, business processes and technical infrastructure. Prior to joining Cowen, she held similar positions at Convergex and NASDAQ and also held senior positions at Citibank and Lava Trading.
Aitken previously worked at Credit Suisse where she was a Managing Director in Institutional Equity Sales primarily covering the Mid-Atlantic region for over 17 years. She also held similar roles with Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette and Kidder Peabody.
Prior to joining Cowen, Weigel ran her own consulting company that provided conference logistics and one-on-one meeting coordination for a variety of investment banks. She also spent 14 years at Bank of America (formerly Montgomery Securities) in the corporate access and syndicate groups.
Edward Nebens has joined First Pacific Advisors. A professional with more than 20 years of trading experience in investment management, which included more than a decade as Head of Trading, served both on the buyside and the sellside. Nebens was most recently relocated to Los Angeles to run trading for Gratia Capital, a multi strategy fund from 2014 to 2017. Before Gratia Capital, he was Head of Trading at Three Bridges Capital in New York, a long-short fund, from 2011 to 2014. Before that he was Executive Director of Global Equities at UBS. Prior to UBS, Ed was Head Trader for Cantillon Capital Management from 2003 to 2010, managing their trading desks in both New York and London. Earlier in his career, Nebens was a senior trader at asset management firms across the Street, including Deutsche Asset Management, Credit Suisse Asset Management, Julius Baer, and Morgan Stanley.
The Options Clearing Corp appointed Amy McCormick as First Vice President, Financial Risk Management, a new position for the organization. A 22-year veteran, McCormick was a Managing Director at the National Futures Association (NFA), the industrywide self-regulatory organization for the U.S. futures industry, where from 2015 to the present she managed a multi-divisional $60 million program to overhaul clearing risk management systems and oversaw examinations, investigations, and risk management teams. Before the NFA, McCormick served as an Executive Director at CME Group in Risk Management from 2012 to 2015 where she led a successful initiative on real-time risk management
Neudata reported Hagen Lewis has joined the firm as Director, North America, and will be based in midtown New York City. Lewis is charged with expanding the U.S. nationwide marketplace for the firms alternative data intelligence platform. Previously, he held senior sales positions at Liquid Holdings, Fidessa, Knight Capital and Instinet.
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has confirmed its chief strategy officer has decided to leave his position after more than 16 years with the exchange.David Lester was named head of LSEs corporate strategy in 2011 and was responsible for the Groups mergers and acquisitions and development of core growth initiatives. He has been a member of LSEs Executive Committee since he joined in 2001 as chief information officer, taking responsibility for both its technology and market data businesses, before becoming group director of information services in 2009.
Instinet, the equity execution services arm of Nomura, named Stuart Knowling as CEO of Instinet Asia Pacific (APAC) based in Hong Kong.Knowling has been the Chief Operating Officer of Instinet APAC since 2010. Tetsuhiro Nishi, the previous CEO of Instinet APAC, is taking on a new role within Nomura as the Head of Execution Services, Asia ex-Japan, also based in Hong Kong.
Brett Redfearn has was named JP Morgans new Head of Market Structure. Redfearn, a 22-year Wall Street pro, served as the firms Global Head, Equity Market Structure Strategy. Before that, he was the firms Americas Head of Market Structure Strategy. He has also spent the last eight years serving on BATS Global Markets board and has been on the BIDS board as well.
Drexel Hamilton, a New York state-certified service-disabled veteran-owned broker-dealer has named Thomas Durkin and to man its new Boston office. Thomas Durkin joins Drexel Hamilton with more than 20 years of experience in equitycapital markets, most recently with Avondale Partners where he was Director, Institutional Trading servicing clients in Boston, New York, Mid-Atlantic and Canada. Previously, Durkin held equity trading roles with Wedbush/PacGrow Life Sciences, BB&T Capital Markets and Weeden & Co.
Berube joins Drexel Hamilton with more than 20 years of experience in equitycapital markets, most recently as a Managing Director at GL Capital Partners. Prior to that, Berube was a Partner at Weeden and Co. Mark began his career at Bear Stearns & Co, as Vice President on the Institutional Trading desk.
