MEMX Technology Helps Improve Trading Venue Performance
Blue Ocean ATS, which trades US stocks overnight, and the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) for companies committed to long-term value creation, both migrated to MEMX technology in 2024 in order to improve performance of their venues and make them more scalable according to a story in MarketsMedia news. Blue Ocean ATS clients can trade US National Market System stocks between 8pm ET and 4am ET from Sunday to Thursday, which allows Asian investors to buy and sell US stocks during their trading day. The ATS had launched in October 2021 and chief executive and president Brian Hyndman said that they selected MEMX technology as their platform given that it provides the capacity to process 35 billion messages. The increased capacity is critical given the continued growth of after-hours trading. The increased bandwidth also means that Blue Ocean will be able to handle increased volumes as it executes its strategy of expanding into new geographies. There are more than 60 retail brokers trading on Blue Ocean and Hyndman expects that number to continue to grow. LTSE, a registered national securities exchange and self-regulatory organization, launched its exchange in 2020, and initially reached a maximum daily volume of about 5 million shares. After upgrading its trading infrastructure to MEMX technology in 2024, LTSE hit a daily volume of over 30 million shares in less than two weeks. MEMX said in a case study this was due the upgrade providing access to advanced order types, enhanced risk controls, and direct market data feeds. MEMX went live for trading equities in 2020 and chief executive Jonathan Kellner said one of the guiding factors was to innovate via technology. The firm built the technology, MEMX MAP, for its exchange in-house and wanted it to be scalable, multi-asset class and able to be delivered to others. The technology was also used for MEMX’s options exchange which launched in 2023 and will support MX2, a potential second equities exchange that is awaiting regulatory approval.