Two Sigma Securities agreed to buy Interactive Brokers Group Inc.’s options market-making business, acquiring a pioneer of electronic trading to break into derivatives trading. Terms of the deal for Timber Hill weren’t disclosed. Interactive Brokers Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Peterffy founded Timber Hill in 1982.  The business was once the world’s largest options market maker. Though Timber Hill has shrunk, the deal helps get Two Sigma Securities into options trading after it’s spent several years assembling the pieces, including the...

Goldman Sachs debuted a new dark pool last week. At first, only two stocks traded on the new platform, dubbed Sigma X-Squared, but everything else will be shifted over within about a month from the older Sigma X system. Goldman Sachs’ new dark pool will allow clients to choose which kinds of trading behaviors they want to be on the other side of. That’s opposed to Sigma X’s old system, which takes a more general approach to how clients choose who they trade with. The new pool will run on Nasdaq Inc. technology. Nasdaq is the third-largest owner of U.S. stock exchanges, and...

Financial professionals using a Thomson Reuters desktop can now integrate their internal and partner applications through the launch of its Side by Side Integration API. Together with App Studio, Eikon’s third-party developer suite, users can extract more value from Eikon through a seamless workflow on a single desktop. Side by Side Integration allows for external applications to hook into the communications network that Eikon apps use to exchange information.  Examples include Instrument Identifiers, Portfolio, or Trade Orders that can be passed between applications.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation announced that Valentino (Val) Wotton has been appointed Managing Director, DTCC Deriv/SERV, effective August 29, 2017. In this role, Mr. Wotton will be responsible for product development and strategy, reporting to Chris Childs, President & CEO of DTCC Deriv/SERV. Prior to DTCC, Mr. Wotton served as Head of Post Trade Services and European Operations at Barclays.

Bloomberg is stepping into the Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) realm as an accredited Local Operating Unit (LOU) of the Global LEI System (GLEIS). The company has received “approval to issue and maintain” LEIs, and joins the network of LOUs that have the blessings of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF). LOUs create, assign and maintain LEIs, which were intended to provide greater transparency into financial markets and mitigate risk for market participants. For those that need “or are required to obtain an LEI” can do so via Bloomberg’s portal...

FIF is excited to welcome Jane Street Capital as members of the Financial Information Forum.  

Broadridge Financial Solutions has appointed Deborah A. Bussière as global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) effective May 8, a post that she held at Grayscale Investments. In her role, Bussière will direct Broadridge’s global marketing functions, including execution of the company’s brand strategy, product marketing efforts, corporate communications, and digital and social media marketing. She will report to Chris Perry, president of global sales, marketing and client solutions, Broadridge.

  On Thursday evening, April 20th, FIF held its quarterly event at the top floor of Thomson Reuters Times Square. Approximately 200 FIF members registered for the event, which focused on the hot topic of AI and Machine Learning and how it will/is affecting the financial services industry.  The knowledgeable panel featured Tim Baker of Thomson Reuters, Eng Lim Goh of HPE and Michael O'Rourke of NASDAQ. Following the panel discussion, the attendees and panelists enjoyed a networking reception in a beautiful space overlooking Times Square.  FIF would like to thank our...

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest U.S. lender, is planning to more than triple the size of its technology hub in New York City, in order to increase space for the bank’s coders and data engineers, according to a story in Bloomberg News. The firm is in discussions to lease an additional 300,000 square feet on the upper levels of 5 Manhattan West near Hudson Yards. The bank currently occupies about 125,000 square feet in the building. JPMorgan has a $9.6 billion annual technology budget and has recently set up hubs across the U.S. for teams specializing in big data, robotics and...