This year, The TRADE is proud to be celebrating its twentieth anniversary and to mark the momentous occasion we are excited to be launching the first North American iteration of our famous Leaders in Trading awards. 

The shortlists for the Leaders in Trading New York Buy-Side Awards have been produced following a slew of nominations from key industry players across North America, recognising whom amongst their peers stand out as the most deserving of these recognitions. 

Congratulations to all those nominated across the five categories! The winners will be announced at the Leaders in Trading New York glittering awards night to be held at Chelsea Piers in New York City on 19 November.

“The Buy-Side Awards are the highlight of Leaders in Trading,” said The TRADE’s editor Annabel Smith. “We couldn’t be more excited to be bringing the magic of Leaders in Trading over to the US for the first time in The TRADE’s 20-year history.” 

The categories for the Buy-Side Awards include the coveted Trader of the Year – Long Only, Trader of the Year – Hedge Fund,  the Trading Desk of the Year Awards, and Buy-Side Market Structure Expert of the Year. 

Also set to be recognised on the night are this year’s Rising Stars of Trading and Execution, North America – to be announced in due course. 

Many congratulations to all the shortlisted individuals and teams, it will be a night to remember! 

Trader of the Year – Long Only 

Megan Davidson, BlackRock

Chris Fiorito, River Road Asset Management

Stephanie Fraser, Baillie Gifford 

Jay Peters, Artisan Partners 

Jason Siegendorf, Harris Associates

Trader of the Year – Hedge Fund

David Alfred, Conversant Capital

Adam Nemser, Southpoint Capital

Keith Roscoe, Jericho Capital Asset Management

Craig Tscherne, Verition Fund Management

Renato Zimberknopf, Fourth Sail Capital

Trading Desk of the Year

Balyasny Asset Management 

BlackRock 

Millennium

Thompson, Siegel & Walmsley LLC

Wellington Management  

Fixed Income Trading Desk of the Year 

Invesco

Janus Henderson

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM)

PIMCO 

T. Rowe Price

Buy-Side Market Structure Expert of the Year

Simon Cohen, Morgan Stanley Investment Management

Dan Eisemann, MFS Investment Management

Melissa Hinmon, Glenmede Investment Management

Mett Kinack, T. Rowe Price

Ed McBride, Centiva Management

Key contacts at The TRADE 

Please contact Patrick Wright at patrick.wright@thetradenews.com for sponsorship opportunities or to book a table for Leaders in Trading New York.

If you are a member of the buy-side community and would like information on attending please contact Karen Delahoy at karen.delahoy@thetradenews.com or Annabel Smith at annabel.smith@thetradenews.com.

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Aleksey Larichev

This development comes as Avelacom becomes an RCB (Rede de Comunicação B3 – B3 Communications Network) provider. 

Through RCB’s connectivity method, Avelacom has gained access to all of B3’s markets, including equities, derivatives, digital assets, and OTC. It also opens the door to the exchange’s post-trade and testing environments. 

The move facilitates low latency access to B3 for all trading participants and extends the exchange’s services to numerous additional global markets. 

Aleksey Larichev, chief executive of Avelacom, said: “Becoming an RCB authorised party allows us to provide more flexible and cost-effective solutions with various capacity options, helping financial firms operate more efficiently.”

Read more: Avelacom unveils new latency routes connecting to South Korea

Avelacom’s network allows clients to test and trade B3 by receiving market data feeds and trading remotely as well as on-site without needing to be collocated in B3’s data centre. 

Marcos Guimaraes, Managing Director of Avelacom, LATAM, asserted the importance of this step for the business: “With this development, B3 markets becomes available at all markets on Avelacom´s global network. It also lowers the barrier of entering B3’s market from abroad by facilitating access to the trading floor and lowering costs for local brokers and trading participants.”

The move comes at a key time for Brazil, a market which has received more and more attention in recent times as global clients turn their heads towards its capital markets. 

An Acuiti report from March found that almost 68% of proprietary trading firms are planning to trade on new exchanges in 2024, with Brazil touted as a main area of focus, along with Asia-Pacific. 

Read more: Two thirds of prop trading firms plan to trade new exchanges this year

Expansion into the market has been predicted for some time with players keeping a close eye on its performance in recent times.

Speaking to The TRADE in October 2023, emerging markets expert Mark Mobius highlighted the significant potential of looking further afield: “We’re finding companies that are most profitable and have great growth opportunities in Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey, South Africa.”

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nuam exchange, which was formed by the merger of Santiago, Lima and Colombia stock exchanges, is aiming to establish an open market that can strengthen its domestic economies, alongside increasing its position as a global exchange group.

The exchange also seeks to offer an integrated market across various asset classes and market infrastructures, with plans to broaden its range of products and services as it expands.

“This strategic and technological partnership gives us the ability to position nuam exchange on a world-class stage for the operation of the new market we are creating,” said Juan Pablo Córdoba, chief executive at nuam exchange.

“Having Nasdaq’s technology, reliability, and experience will take us to the next level in this integration process.”

As part of the partnership, Nasdaq will provide a flexible and scalable technology platform able to support the exchange’s growth trajectory.

Nasdaq’s technology will also help develop the new exchange group while ensuring the fairness, resilience, and performance of its marketplace.

nuam exchange will standardise access to the market through standard industry APIs, improving the ease and cost of access.

Safeguards in the form of risk controls will also help ensure quality and trust in the market, which will help attract larger, global participants, alongside strengthening liquidity.

“The combination of Nasdaq’s institutional grade technology and the consolidation of three leading Latin American exchanges is an exciting prospect,” said Tal Cohen, co-president at Nasdaq.

“Global capital markets are increasingly demanding resilient and robust technology, capable of withstanding ever-greater volatility and volume. Well-functioning, trusted markets are critical to inclusive growth and prosperity, and we are pleased to support the ongoing development of nuam exchange in Latin America.”

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The move follows a 19-year stint at Credit Suisse, most recently as managing director, head of AES sales Americas at Credit Suisse. 

In this new role, Pyrka Turner will based in New York and continue to operate across the Americas region.

The Swiss bank has seen a sweep of personnel changes in recent times, following its acquisition by UBS earlier this year. Over the last quarter, ex-Credit Suisse experts have joined firms including Wells Fargo, TD Cowen, and RBC.

Read more: UBS makes cuts to cash equity division in London following the takeover of Credit Suisse

UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse in March, in a marriage orchestrated by the Swiss government and at the time was viewed with trepidation by some as there were concerns it would trigger widespread jobs losses in the UK. 

Credit Suisse employed about five thousand people in the City before the takeover.

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This comes as the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) this month invited market participants to provide feedback on the shortening of the settlement cycle in the European Union. However, the general feeling in Europe is that a move to T+1 within the next five years is unrealistic due to the fragmented nature of the European industry and the existing challenges around settlement fails and CSDR.

“The reality is that we’ve got multiple jurisdictions and locations going live with T+1 at different times,” said one panellist. “It looks like the UK and Europe won’t be aligned, unfortunately. Europe’s a very different beast; it’s far more complicated when you think about the 30+ CSDs, all of the intricacies that happen with T2S markets and non T2S markets, and the inefficiencies that still exist within the market itself. So that whole move is going to have a far more complicated delivery schedule to it.”

The panel agreed that disparate settlement cycles will only serve to cause disruption to the global industry, with a move in Europe needed sooner rather than later. On a potential seven-year wait for T+1 in Europe, one expert said: “You cannot wait seven years to go live; you can’t be seven years behind the US and have organisations carrying this very disjointed settlement cycle for such an extended period of time.”

Frustration also appears to be present within the European markets, with one panellist stating that some CSDs have “made early noises about potentially rebelling” and going ahead without the rest of the European markets  “because they do not want to be seen as non-competitive”.

“Symmetry across the globe is really important,” added another expert. “Having seven years of massive, mismatched settlements – I just don’t know how you’d do that. It will be tonnes of headaches, costs and staff. It’s going to be more frustrating for desks if we’ve got misalignment – it’s going to become a bigger and bigger problem. We don’t want to be managing fails and mismatches, it’s non-value-add work. Reducing that down will force discipline.”

What the industry can do, the panel agreed, is to be vocal with regulators on what needs to happen to ensure as much harmonisation as possible. Industry bodies, working groups and CSDs need to work together to find common goals and not pull in separate directions; otherwise there is potential chaos afoot.

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Definitely. Russia was around 7% of the emerging markets index, and anyone present in Russia had to reallocate their money to other markets. Initially of course, a lot went to the US, but now many are looking more at other countries, specifically at emerging market countries, so in that sense there’s been a redistribution of money into the emerging market space.

Do emerging technologies have any impact on the way you analyse particular market opportunities? 

Definitely, technology is moving so fast and it’s having such an incredible impact. You just look at the top companies now and what they were say 10, 15, 20 years ago, you’ll see there’s been a key change in these companies, mainly because of the new technology. This is continuing and accelerating in many ways, especially with AI coming into the picture where you’re going to see a lot of impact across the market.

No matter what industry you’re in, you have to pay attention to these technological changes because it’s going to have a big impact on what happens to firms.

In terms of AI’s influence on trading processes, it already is having a big impact because you can now better anticipate what is coming as it speeds up the ability to analyse the different signals in the market. If you follow some of the most successful hedge funds, for example, you will notice that they have been using AI in order to improve their performance for some time, and that’s mainly because they can better anticipate what’s happening in the market.

Some are not embracing technology however because they’re stuck in the past and it’s very difficult to change people’s behaviour, especially when they’re surviving. If they’re surviving in the market, the thought tends to be, ‘well, why should I change, there’s no sense in it because I’m making money,’ but that, of course, is rather short sighted. You’ve got to be able to move with the times and wake up to what’s happening in the market right now. 

In terms of traders managing risk, what are the main considerations to bear in mind in EM? Do traders pay enough attention to the post-trade environment?

The key is being able to get money out. When you invest in any country, you must make sure you get the money out – people who were in Russia learnt that lesson the hard way and got stuck. Aside from geopolitics, in other instances in the past it has been impossible to get money out because of currency restrictions. In that situation, you need to look at the strength of the trade within the country. If you have a country with very little foreign exchange and a very bad trade balance then you’ve got to watch out, that would be a very big risk.

In terms of traders paying enough attention to the post-trade environment, I would say possibly not. Traders are very short term in the way they look at things and probably are not looking towards the post-trade environment unless something is happening, unless there’s a crisis of some kind. An unfortunate side effect of not paying much attention to that aspect is that they may miss what’s coming down the road.

Which emerging jurisdictions are next on the list for traders to move into? How does one pinpoint the global contenders?

Well, the big boy on the block is going to be India for of a range of reasons, they’re developing at an incredible pace, for example their technology which is getting better and better every day. India is definitely number one on the list.

From our perspective at Mobius Capital Partners, we have a little bit of investment in China, but not much. However, we are currently present in: Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil – those are the countries that we’ve been looking at. This has mainly been driven by the companies in those jurisdictions. We’re finding companies that are most profitable and have great growth opportunities – of course depending on the sector.

We are finding a number of good opportunities. In those particular countries a lot of people worry about the currency risk, and it definitely is something you have to consider, but sometimes weak currency can work out well.

Following the recent agreement between India and the UAE to trade in local currencies, is that a development you welcome? Would you like to see others following their lead?

Frankly I don’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Generally speaking, we invest in US dollars and when there is a move to another currency is when it becomes more complicated for us as investors. 

One of the positive aspects of this however is that both countries will have to be more careful about their currencies and try to make sure that their currency remains stable. If you look at the UAE Dirham it’s pretty steady against the dollar and recently the Indian rupee has also become very steady against the dollar, so in that sense it’s probably a good thing that these countries will then need to lend more attention to the strength of their currencies.

In terms of currency affecting trading, there are examples like BRICs currency, with the countries meeting [this week] in South Africa to discuss. That would be denominated in gold and of course that gives a big challenge, but again, investors will probably convert that currency into dollars. In terms of trading, to the fact that a common currency, a new currency like that, forces more trade to a degree means it’s probably a good thing.

What are the main things traders should bear in mind when looking at emerging markets?

The principal thing that you must bear in mind is do the very best for their clients. In other words, really keep their clients in mind when executing the trades and trying to get the best deal. At the end of the day, keeping clients informed is the most important thing and by communicating what is happening in the market you’ll win the confidence of the clients, they’ll appreciate it and that is beneficial for the traders. Once you get the trust of the client then you can do a lot of business, they are the key ingredient – without clients, there is no business.

The TRADE once called you the “Indiana Jones” of emerging market investing. Is Mobius Capital Partners imbued with the same spirit?

Definitely, we keep up with the idea that you’ve got to try new things, go into new markets. In fact, in our funds we have put in a rule where we will focus on companies that are not in the index, in other words medium-sized companies. Usually, we focus on companies that a lot of people probably don’t know about, and we continue to follow an Indiana Jones-style of moving into new territories. It is somewhat risky perhaps, but so far it’s really paid off for us if you look at our performance. 

In terms of how we trade, it’s a very important question because our actual trading turnover is very low and any trading we do is done by our custodial bank. 

We place orders and they put the orders in and of course try to do the best trade possible and therefore we’re not very affected by what’s happening on the trading floor day by day. In terms of electing these custodial banks, for us, the first criteria is safety. We want a custodial bank that’s big and has a strong financial position because they’re holding our assets of course. But second most important is that we need a custodial bank that is willing to go into new areas.

When I was looking at emerging markets back in 1987, many banks refuse to hold any assets in places like Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore etc. because they were simply not set up for that. So that’s a very important point for us. We need banks that are willing and have a network of partner banks to hold the assets on their behalf. 

Back then it was very difficult and luckily for us we had the backing of a big organisation at Templeton – Franklin Resources, which came in with billions of assets, so we could sort of twist the arm of these banks we were already using, to go into these countries, but it’s not easy. You have to really do a lot of arm twisting to get them to do it, but in the end it paid off for both sides. What’s important to say is that it helped industry generally because a lot of other people came into emerging markets and they were able to benefit from the fact that these banks already had a custodial relationship. 

[This interview was conducted on 24 August 2023].

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OPRA previously confirmed that it was expanding its data dissemination from a 48-line to a 96-line multicast data distribution network in a move aimed at optimal symbol balancing and line capacity utilisation.

OPRA’s subscribers have now requested additional test time, which the authority has granted, with the go live now set for 5 February 2024, as opposed to the previously confirmed 5 October 2023.

It has also been confirmed that the next capacity test will be carried out 18 November this year, before a functional test and capacity test on 20 January 2024, three weeks before the go live.

As the authority plans to scale the capacity of its distribution, the market is preparing for the significant change and putting in place measures to consume around 120 million messages a second following the go live.

Speaking to The TRADE, David Taylor, chief executive of trading infrastructure provider, Exegy, explained: “That’s an enormous amount of data. As a firm who acquired a company that previously ran a traditional software implementation of a ticker plant to consume that feed, we know that it can take a dozen, two dozen, maybe more servers to consume that data with software and current market participants are looking at doubling the amount of hardware they need to deploy in order to consume that data.”

Read more – Data arms race heats up as venues and vendors eye buy-side business through new initiatives

Exegy recently announced its sixth generation ticker plant which is purpose-built for processing this options market data, processing the OPRA feed on a single 2U server and providing an immediate two times latency reduction (when compared to the previous fifth generation). 

Specifically, the changes being made by OPRA: “Help facilitate capacity upgrades to the ICE Global Network (IGN), new subnets, rendezvous points, source addresses, and multicast addresses are being introduced (including Global Trading Hours).” 

The process is split into two phases, with the migration of the current 48-line symbol distribution schema to new network subnets, rendezvous points, source addresses, and multicast addresses coming first, before phase two wherein migration of the new symbol distribution schema over 96 lines will happen.

In terms of how prepared the market is for such a move, Taylor told The TRADE: “I think most firms are prepared or preparing as well as they can. There was recently a capacity test by the consolidated tape […] they approached that 120 million message per second level of performance.

“[…] the industry has been vocal and in fact this change has been delayed a few times just to give the industry the ability to be ready and I think that’s a very important point – that this issue of capacity and the ability to handle the data is an important market stability issue so we view our efforts to provide these very efficient, high capacity systems as our contribution to having stable, reliable markets.”

As a securities information processor, OPRA members consist of the national securities exchanges that have been approved by the SEC to provide markets for the listing and trading of exchange-traded securities options.

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The WFE board is comprised of 18 leaders from around the world, and both Chye Loh and Dijsselhof will serve two-year terms, the WFE has confirmed.

London-headquartered WFE represents more than 250 market infrastructure providers, including standalone CCPs. Its membership is 34% based in Asia-Pacific, 45% in EMEA and 21% in the Americas.

Alongside the incoming chair and vice chair, John McKenzie, chief exec of TMX Group, has been named working committee chair.

In addition, four directors have been appointed to the board: Greg Wojciechowski, president and CEO of Bermuda Stock Exchange and Fredric Tomczyk, CEO of Cboe Global Markets, as directors of the Americas region, and Hiromi Yamaji, CEO of the Japan Exchange Group and Byungdoo Sohn, chair and CEO of Korea Exchange, as directors of the Asia-Pacific region.

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“Under current rules, proprietary trading firms which are solely members of an exchange are subject to less rigorous oversight and operate in a less transparent manner than firms that are current FINRA members and that are required to report their Treasury trades,” explained commissioner Jaime Lizárraga.

”Today’s [23 August] amendments remedy this lack of transparency by levelling the playing field between current FINRA members that report their Treasury trades and non-FINRA members that aren’t required to.”

Previously some firms were able to engage in unlimited proprietary trading of securities off-member-exchange without FINRA oversight – at the time this related to National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), FINRA’s predecessor.

However, as chair of the SEC Gary Gensler explained in a statement this week, markets have undergone drastic developments since the rule was first introduced in 1976.

“Today [23 August], many broker-dealers conduct significant cross-exchange or off-exchange activity. Yet, some of today’s broker-dealers continue to rely on an exemption from national securities association registration that’s older than the cell phone era. This has led to a regulatory gap whereby a number of firms that have cross-market, monthly trading volume valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars are exempt from national securities association oversight.”

Gensler further added: “I support this adoption because I believe it will modernise the rule to enhance cross-market and off-exchange oversight for some of the most active participants in the capital markets.”

Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw highlighted that the decision will extend FINRA’s oversight to potentially dozens of broker-dealers. 

The rule has divided the market, with conflicting opinions on the benefits of such a move.

Lizárraga said: “These amendments bring transparency to off-exchange activity and level the playing field for firms that provide liquidity on and off-exchanges […] overall, these reforms promote markets that are fairer, more efficient and transparent, and also more resilient and stable, with lower spreads that benefit retail investors.”

However, whilst some, like Gensler and Lizárraga, highlight key benefits including increased transparency and strengthened oversight in the treasury markets, others question the effect it may have on liquidity.

Commissioner Mark Uyeda on 23 August stated his staunch opposition to the rule, pinpointing the substantial downside risk these amendments pose, explaining that “it could result in a reduction in liquidity, particularly in sectors of the market that can least afford it”.

He added that the amendment also includes a conflict-of-interest angle: “The Commission’s findings in favour of a mandatory expansion of FINRA membership are based largely on FINRA’s own submission. But FINRA has a conflict of interest here as these amendments would benefit FINRA in terms of increased revenues.”

Once the final rule is published in the federal register – taking effect 60 days from posting – firms will have a year to comply.

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US corporate bond results saw IG e-trading and HY e-trading both increase year on year, by 2% and 1% respectively, while the rates market saw a 4% increase in dealer-to-client e-trading.

However, according to Coalition Greenwich, “the story going forward is not one of e-trading growth, per se, but e-trading innovation and evolution”. This comes as credit e-trading remained comparatively similar compared to the previous year, while overall e-trading in US rates in fact declined by 3%.

Trading via request-for-quote (RFQ) is reportedly continuing to grow in line with increased automation – with the market moving towards a modern algo-driven protocol.

“Several conversations with market participants suggest that our estimates for trading via streams are on the low side, with anecdotal data showing buy-side trading against dealer streams (often through a platform) is on the rise,” said Coalition Greenwich, further adding that e-trading development has less to do with volume and more to do with innovation and evolution – “as the market automates, and trading by appointment is increasingly unnecessary”.

Additionally, the report found that trading sentiment in the rates market is on the up, as volatility wains. Last month the US market saw a significant increase in volume, up 27%, while volatility declined 15% year over year.

According to the paper, “with the Fed expected to pause and inflation cooling, volatility might finally be calming down”.

The summer slowdown also has proven benefits, allowing buy-side traders more time to try new trading protocols or platforms.

During this period, despite continued volatility in interest-rate markets, the corporate bond secondary market saw a year-on-year increase of the average daily notional volume (ADNV) traded in July, up 10% compared to last year.

At the same time high-yield volumes fell 11%, as e-trading percentages remained similar to the same time last year, according to findings.

The report explained: “This quiet period has proven good for buy-side traders, who finally have the time to try new trading protocols or platforms. Nevertheless, the last three years have shown us that nothing is a given, and the next big thing for corporate bond trading is anyone’s guess.” 

Elsewhere, ETF trading volumes in Q2 2023 declined around 23% from the same time last year, with the ETF-to-cash ratio also on a steady decline since Q1, with the Q2 reading the lowest since 2021.

The report also found that the primary market had remained relatively healthy despite the interest-rate environment. According to Coalition Greenwich “dealer net positions suggest it is the buy side that continues to lend to these issuers, with dealer corporate bond holdings down 30% from June.”

Coalition Greenwich’s August data spotlights cover both US rates trading and US credit trading.

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