Barclays announced the launch of BARX Book for Equities, a new single-dealer platform developed in partnership with Nasdaq. Hosted by Nasdaq on its market technology infrastructure, BARX Book for Equities provides institutional clients access to the bank’s unique, principal liquidity for U.S.-listed single names and exchange-traded funds, and is Barclays’ most recent innovation for equities within BARX, the firm’s multi-asset electronic trading platform. BARX Book for Equities represents a new chapter in Barclays’ client liquidity strategy, as it allows more ways for clients...

The first equity algorithm has been launched on the new high-speed Atlas trading platform from Goldman Sachs targeting quantitative hedge fund clients. Known as AXIS, the algo is an order placement algorithm that uses proprietary signals to predict price movements and volatility. The signals are embedded within the algo’s trading and routing logic for better execution in both passive and aggressive orders. The algo aims to minimize execution cost or slippage over short trading intervals by allowing traders to delegate segments of a parent order for more efficient execution of smaller...

Deutsche Bank has employed the services of Google Cloud to speed up its migration of its operations and services onto the cloud. According to a story in The Trade news, Deutsche Bank has finalized a major agreement with Google to migrate its operations and systems to the cloud, including its Autobahn institutional electronic trading platform. The multi-year strategic partnership will see Google Cloud reshape Deutsche Bank’s products and services for up-to-date and managed cloud applications environment to increase flexibility. Several use cases under the partnership were being considered,...

Boston-based investment bank State Street has made its suite of algorithms available to traders on the BidFX platform to provide more flexibility in execution during heightened market volatility, according to a story in The Trade news. The four algorithmic strategies by State Street will be available directly on the institutional foreign exchange trading platform provider’s network and will give users more flexibility in execution by tailoring approaches to client requirements and trading preferences. BidFX, which was previously a subsidiary of trading systems provider TradingScreen, has...

JP Morgan has executed a repo trade using an in-house blockchain application following successful simulations with Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon. The intraday repo trade was settled instantly on the Onyx blockchain platform and swapped digitized US treasury bonds for JP Morgan’s dollar-backed cryptocurrency known as JPM Coin. JP Morgan said blockchain technology facilitated the instantaneous settlement and maturity of the repo transaction in hours rather than days and creates new ways to access intraday liquidity. JP Morgan developed the blockchain platform via its new business unit Onyx...

FIF CAT Tech Specs Working Group. The CAT Tech Specs Working Group reviewed the recently-received responses from FINRA CAT to questions and comments previously submitted by FIF. The Working Group reviewed various issues raised by FIF members, including internal routing scenarios, reporting for foreign securities, and reporting of the symbol for orders received after the close of trading on the evening prior to a symbol change. The Working Group reviewed the new and updated FIX Extension Packs for CAT. The Working Group reviewed the SEC approval of the FINRA rule proposal relating to the...

FIF featured the following spotlight presentations this past week: FIF Front Office Committee Spotlight on OTCBB (Monday, November 30). Chris Bok of OTC Markets discussed FINRA’s proposal to retire the OTCBB and enhance oversight of OTC equity markets. FIF Spotlight on FPL Programs (Thursday, December 3). FIF conducted a call for Back Office Committee members that focused on the recent SEC no-action letter relating to fully paid lending (FPL) programs (programs in which broker-dealers borrow fully paid and excess margin securities from their customers). Nihal Patel from the Cadwalader...

FIF will be hosting three upcoming webinars during December: SEC Government Securities ATSs. On Tuesday December 8th at 2 pm ET, Julian Rainero and Bill Barbera of the Schulte Roth & Zabel law firm will present on the recent SEC Government Securities ATS rule proposal with James Dolan of Luminex as moderator. The rule proposal also impacts existing ATSs. Register here. Annual FIF CAT Webinar. On Monday December 14th at 4 pm ET, FIF will host a year-end CAT Webinar sponsored by Refinitiv. Will Leahey of Refinitiv will be the moderator for the panel. The panelists will include Shelly...

On December 4th, FIF submitted a comment letter on the SEC’s “Proposed Amendments to the National Market System Plan Governing the Consolidated Audit Trail to Enhance Data Security”. The FIF comment letter focused on the currently proposed CAT CAIS (Customer Account and Information System) reporting requirements.