New Trading Glossary Terms

DWS Investments
The mutual fund arm of Deutsche Asset Management and the second-largest European mutual fund company
International Securities Lending Association
A trade association established in 1989 to represent the common interests of participants in the securities lending industry. ISLA works closely with European regulators and in the United Kingdom has representation on the Securities Lending and Repo Committee, a committee of market practitioners chaired by the Bank of England.
ISLA
International Securities Lending Association
RMA
Risk Managemement Association
Total Return Swap
A contract in which one party receives interest payments on a reference asset, plus any capital gains and losses over the payment period, whereas the other receives a specified fixed or floating cash flow unrelated to the credit worthiness of the reference asset, especially where the payments are based on the same notional amount. The interest payments are floating payments and are usually based upon the LIBOR with a spread added according to the agreement between parties. The reference asset may be any asset, index, or basket of assets.
TRS
Total Return Swap

Imperial Tobacco

Imperial Tobacco Group PLC is the world's fourth largest international tobacco company. The Group manufactures and sells a comprehensive range of cigarettes, tobaccos, rolling papers, filter tubes and cigars in over 160 countries worldwide and currently has around 40,000 employees and 58 manufacturing sites.

Trace Financial Double Awards

Trace Financial Cloverleaf®finance awarded SWIFTReady Financial Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) label by SWIFT for a record breaking tenth consecutive year:

Trace Financial today announced that its Cloverleaf®finance message broking solution has been awarded the SWIFTReady Enterprise Application Integration label by SWIFT for the tenth consecutive year. No other organisation or product has gained greater recognition. Each year SWIFT introduces new challenges and each year Trace is able to demonstrate compliance, primarily due to the power and flexibility of the Cloverleaf®finance product.

In addition, Trace’s Transformer product has simultaneously gained the SWIFTReady Message Data Services (MDS) label.

To achieve this status Trace Financial has implemented a comprehensive suite of mappings between the SWIFT MT and MX standards and passed (100%) a comprehensive test suite to prove accurate implementation. The solution is capable of being deployed as a service in numerous technical architectures including J2EE, .NET, Web Services and within third party message brokers.

The power of Transformer is that these mappings can be implemented and maintained without writing code and the same approach can be used for all messaging within a financial enterprise. Libraries are available for CREST, TRAX, FIX, FpML as well as SWIFT MT and MX and support for a client's proprietary formats.


Eric Meirlaen who is responsible for the two labelling programmes at SWIFT commented, “SWIFT is happy to acknowledge Cloverleaf®finance’s capabilities with the tenth consecutive SWIFTReady accreditation - the most that any product has achieved. Trace’s Cloverleaf has consistently demonstrated excellent performance against the demanding EAI criteria that SWIFT has set each year and we commend this achievement.”

He added, “The Transformer product has significantly impressed many people at SWIFT with its bility to handle complex financial message standards and to be deployed in numerous technical architectures. We are pleased to formally recognize and applaud these capabilities with the award of the SWIFTReady label in our Messaging Data Service category.”

John Murphy, M.D. of Trace Financial stated “We are very pleased that we have been able to maintain the market leading position of Cloverleaf®finance. Our clients world-wide appreciate the power of our messaging technology and this award demonstrates to the market at large that Cloverleaf®finance is a world class solution.

“Transformer is a unique technology that revolutionises the ability of an enterprise to cope with the ever increasing demands of complex financial message standards. It is the culmination of over twenty years continuous experience delivering messaging solutions and we have received tremendous feedback from our clients who continue to find more and more situations to use it. The MDS award is further validation of Transformer’s world-leading status.”

Mersirow Increases 9%

Mesirow Financial today reported that revenues for its fiscal year ended March 31, 2008 reached a record $492 million, a 9% increase from the previous year. This marks Mesirow Financial's eighteenth consecutive annual increase in revenues. (After the consolidation of certain limited partnerships and limited liability companies required under current accounting rules, audited revenues totaled $860 million). Mesirow Financial remains one of the few private financial services institutions in the industry to disclose annual financial results.

Directors Dealings Information from Deutsche Börse

As of 1 September, Deutsche Börse will be extending its data service to include information on European Directors’ Dealings (EDD). Market Data & Analytics will then be the only provider to publish these information in one consolidated product. Transactions in a stock corporation’s shares conducted by its executive and supervisory boards as well as their family members will be collated, adjusted, verified and then made available in a standardized format.

“The number of reported directors’ transactions in Europe has quadrupled in the last eight years. Our EDD product is primarily a response to trader demand for independent information in a standardized format across Europe.

The real-time EDD data clients will receive via our data feed will have an information depth and quality that are unique in Europe,” Holger Wohlenberg, Managing Director of Deutsche Börse Market Data & Analytics explained.

Directors’ dealings information is used as a trading signal and factored into the analysis of investment behavior and trends. As such, it also serves to develop and test investment strategies. The data contained in the information product is prepared with the help of 2iQ Research, the Frankfurt-based specialist for quantitative processing and evaluation of capital market data, and can be easily integrated in traders’ and analysts’ applications and algorithms. In the past, the use of European Directors’ Dealings data from numerous sources, in the most varied of formats, and in different languages, has proven time-consuming and inefficient.

The EDD information package will be distributed to clients via the CEF® Core and CEF® DataSelect real-time data feeds. Subscribers include large information providers, investment advisors, institutional investors and trading participants with algorithm-based investment strategies.

Neonet in BATS Europe Access Offer

Neonet, is to offer access to the new alternative market, BATS Europe. Neonet already offers trading at BATS US and will offer access to BATS'
European Markets division for its buy- and sell-side clients upon the platform's target launch in November.

Trading in Europe is undergoing a period of rapid transformation, and BATS Europe represents a new generation of trading platforms. BATS was launched in the US in January 2006 as one of the fastest-growing, top-tier equity markets - it has more than a 10 percent matched share of the US market - and is now expanding into Europe. BATS recently received approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission to become a national securities exchange, and will go live as an exchange in October.

Mark Hemsley chief executive of BATS' European Markets division, said "We are pleased to further our relationship with Neonet and look forward to the significant order flow this agreement is likely to bring. BATS Europe aims to follow a similar roadmap to its US counterpart and we are excited about the opportunity to Make Markets Better here."

"As the global capital markets continue to evolve, you can be confident in Neonet to offer trading at the most competitive and liquid marketplaces. Neonet blends the order books of traditional exchanges and alternative marketplaces into a river of liquidity to ensure that transactions are made at the best possible price across multiple markets. We are thrilled to extend our relations with BATS as they bring their offering to Europe," states Simon Nathanson, CEO and President of Neonet.

Cloverleaf Given SWIFTReady for 10th Year

Cloverleaf®finance, a message broking solution from Trace Financial has been awarded the SWIFTReady Enterprise Application Integration label by SWIFT for the tenth consecutive year. No other organisation or product has gained greater recognition. Each year SWIFT introduces new challenges and each year Trace is able to demonstrate compliance, primarily due to the power and flexibility of the Cloverleaf®finance product.

In addition, Trace’s Transformer product has simultaneously gained the SWIFTReady Message Data Services (MDS) label.

To achieve this status Trace Financial has implemented a comprehensive suite of mappings between the SWIFT MT and MX standards and passed (100%) a comprehensive test suite to prove accurate implementation. The solution is capable of being deployed as a service in numerous technical architectures including J2EE, .NET, Web Services and within third party message brokers. The power of Transformer is that these mappings can be implemented and maintained without writing code and the same approach can be used for all messaging within a financial enterprise. Libraries are available for CREST, TRAX, FIX, FpML as well as SWIFT MT and MX and support for a client's proprietary formats.

Eric Meirlaen who is responsible for the two labelling programmes at SWIFT commented, “SWIFT is happy to acknowledge Cloverleaf®finance’s capabilities with the tenth consecutive SWIFTReady accreditation - the most that any product has achieved. Trace’s Cloverleaf has consistently demonstrated excellent performance against the demanding EAI criteria that SWIFT has set each year and we commend this achievement.”

He added, “The Transformer product has significantly impressed many people at SWIFT with its ability to handle complex financial message standards and to be deployed in numerous technical architectures. We are pleased to formally recognize and applaud these capabilities with the award of the SWIFTReady label in our Messaging Data Service category.”

Northern Trust Speakers

Northern Trust Corporation announced today that Frederick H. Waddell, President and Chief Executive Officer, will be speaking at the Lehman Brothers Global Financial Services Conference at the Hilton New York in New York on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 6:30 a.m. (CT). Separately, Steven L. Fradkin, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will be speaking at the UBS Third Annual Best of Americas Conference at the UBS Conference Center in London on Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 6:20 a.m. (CT).

Fidelity Southern Board Election

Dr. Donald A. Harp, Jr. has been elected to Fidelity Southern Corporation's Board of Directors, and to the Board of Fidelity Bank.

IDS Scheer ARIS Certification

IDS Scheer has been awarded The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) Support Tool certification status for its ARIS Solution for Enterprise Architecture Management.

Efficient enterprise architectures allow for sustainable long and short term cost reductions by effectively managing complex structures and connections between corporate strategy, business processes and IT.

As a member of The Open Group — an independent organisation focusing on open standards and global interoperability within and between companies— IDS Scheer can now influence the future direction of drives TOGAF. IDS Scheer UK also has TOGAF certified consultants, who can assist customers in developing TOGAF based EA solutions. This emphasises Furthermore, Gartner and Forrester’s have positioninged of IDS Scheer as market leaders for enterprise architecture solutions.

To coincide with the certification, IDS Scheer has launched ARIS IT Inventory, a new core product within the ARIS Solution for Enterprise Architecture Management. This new product will help companies plan their IT landscapes and alignment to the business within a process-based environment.

The ARIS IT Inventory enhances the solution with the addition of a web-based, user-friendly maintenance component for applications, technologies and infrastructure information. This new feature, designed to allow the publication of IT system information via the Intranet, provides users with web-based input screens to maintain application and technology data.

The scalability of ARIS IT Inventory for large user groups makes it possible to quickly generate decentralised IT system inventories while supporting the simultaneous processing of system data and descriptions by multiple users. The ARIS Platform then uses this IT system inventory to produce a complete IT planning environment with an integrated database, the ARIS Repository. This enables them to respond in a flexible and agile way to changing market situations and continuously boost their performance.

Private Banking and IT by ITC

A recent publication by leading independent research and advisory firm Financial Insights, an IDC company, points to the quantum shift in the importance of IT as a part of the private banks' world, and provides an overview of the most relevant solutions available in the arena. The report entitled, "Private Banking: Volume 2 - Software Solution Vendor Analysis"(Doc#FIN213931), outlines private banking software solutions requirements by the Asian market, and presents a snapshot of the prominent private banking solution vendors in Asia. It also discusses the typical package selection criteria adopted by private banks to narrow down their search for the most appropriate solution provider, and issues vendors need to keep top-of-mind when targeting the market.

Financial Insights analyses the market in Asia.
"With the competitive changing panorama for private banks, it has become increasingly crucial that these institutions boast a stellar supporting technology backbone," comments Li-May Chew, CFA, senior research manager for Financial Insights Asia/Pacific Financial Advisory Service. "The key vendors which we explored in this report include ERI, Odyssey Financial Technologies, SS&C Technologies, SunGard, and Temenos. Topics covered include vendors' solution architectures, notable functionalities, selected references, on-ground presence, as well as Financial Insights' opinion of them. "

Li-May points out that "no two vendors appear to be competing head-on within the same space, with the same breadth of solution, or depth of offerings. Odyssey for instance, excels within the front- and middle- office offerings, while SS&C Technologies provides particular focus on clients' middle-office asset valuations and accounting requirements."

On how private banks should narrow down their search for the most appropriate solution provider, Financial Insights believes that the selection of a private banking system goes beyond merely buying packaged software with a static set of functions. Banks should take several factors into consideration. For instance, vendor offerings should correlate with the their commercial strategies; banks must consider the vendors' current and future fit with their existing platform and operating system; banks should seek vendors who are at the forefront of innovation and that have business models with high R&D components; and, preferably, vendors who utilize a system that incorporates a healthy balance of customizable components with past experiences and best practices.

Meanwhile, on the vendor's end, they are advised to implement solutions focused on customer analytics and relationship management; explore Web interfaces to support wealth managers in their proficiency and service execution; keep a close watch on clients' portfolio and risk management requirements; and offer performance and profitability management matrices that provide multi-dimensional analysis at the intersection of customer, product, and channel; which can help identify profit generators and constraints.

BGC Partners

BGC Partners, Inc. (Nasdaq:BGCP), has announced today the acceptance of its euro interest rate swap (EUR) and US dollar (USD) interest rate swap pages as formally recognised price references by the International Swaps and Derivative Association (ISDA).

Based on the endorsement of leading global banks and investment banks, the inclusion of the prices displayed by BGC Partners is seen by market participants as a vital step in reflecting underlying market activity. ISDA documentation governs the terms to confirm, mark, assign and terminate derivative transactions between counterparts and it is clearly in the interest of ISDA members to gain access to market prices from the leading industry providers. The pages will be snapshots of real-time BGC screens taken at a pre-determined time daily.

Commenting on the acceptance, Robin Clark, Executive Managing Director at BGC Partners, said “This is a significant development for our clients because it is a reflection of the widespread, and rapidly-growing, use of our screens to view real-time trading prices based on our hybrid voice, voice assisted and electronic brokerage services in a variety of products. We believe that this will contribute to market best practices and are publishing this data for the benefit of ISDA members worldwide.”

Nadim Mourad, Managing Director, Interest Rate Swaps at BGC Partners in London said “We are delighted that BGC’s euro and US dollar interest rate swap pages have been formally recognised as pricing references by ISDA and feel it reflects our position as a market leader which has been quickly established since BGC’s inception in 2004.”

Turquoise Ready for Trading on August 29th

Turquoise, the alternative trading system backed by 9 investment banks has passed another milestone. All of the 13 markets available for trading have now concluded their settlement cycles and effective settlement has occurred in each country. The validation of trading, clearing and settlement processes will allow members to begin to further utilise the Turquoise MTF across their businesses. Market making will now begin to increase and smart order routers that are being trialled with small volumes will be further employed. Trading desks will be given full access and client order flow will start to be sent to Turquoise.

This confirmation of the operational process also triggers important activities at Turquoise. The rollout of stocks will continue as planned and the complete Turquoise universe will be available for trading on Friday 29 August. As we enter full production trading we will continue the process of connecting software and market data vendors, enabling new trading members and working with EuroCCP to bring on new clearers and ensure a wide member base can access Turquoise efficiently.

We expect this build up in use, the rollout of the full stock universe and the growing number of trading members to translate into a trend of gradually increasing volumes that will continue throughout September and into the fourth quarter.

Knight Capital Operations at Equinix

Equinix, Inc. (Nasdaq:EQIX), a provider of network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services, today announced that Knight Capital Group, Inc. has established operations at Equinix’s New York-4 (NY4) Internet Business Exchange™ (IBX®) data center. The move will enable Knight, a leading provider of electronic and voice access to the capital markets, to take advantage of Equinix’s best-of-breed colocation services to provide an additional low latency access node for clients of Knight’s expanding portfolio of advanced market access and trade execution services across multiple asset classes.

Operating within Equinix’s NY4 data center hub will allow Knight clients to choose from a broad array of high-bandwidth, low latency connectivity providers, enabling them to take advantage of a broad range of customized trade execution products and services. This will include direct connections to Knight’s electronic access and trading offerings, such as the Hotspot FX foreign exchange ECN; Knight Direct EMS™, a broker-neutral electronic trading platform covering multiple asset classes; and Knight Link, dark access to Knight’s internal liquidity.

Equinix’s NY4 data center offers Knight’s clients access via a broad array of telecom service providers which are vital to the electronic trading community. In addition, the cross-connect capability offered by the Equinix Financial eXchange solution provides an ideal platform for direct connection to Knight’s technology infrastructure.

“Knight has an expanding array of electronic access and trading products and services available,” said Steve Sadoff, Senior Managing Director and Chief Information Officer, Knight Capital Group. “As we have grown the electronic side of our business and expanded our client base, the demand for colocation services has increased. Equinix’s state-of-the-art New York area data center and wide array of global, regional and metro network providers significantly strengthen the connectivity choices available for our clients. Furthermore, Equinix’s proven dependability and service will help Knight maintain its reputation for speed, dependability and consistent high-quality trade executions.”

“Our network-rich IBX centers ideally complement Knight’s existing data center operations, and colocation in our New York area center will give their customers a high-performance connectivity platform with high speed, low latency connectivity and proximity to their core trading platforms,” said Steve Smith, president and CEO of Equinix. “We’ve invested significantly to make sure our IBX centers set the industry performance standard, so we’re delighted when a leading financial services firm such as Knight selects Equinix for their colocation and proximity needs.”d

DTCC Enhances Canadian Link

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has enhanced its settlement link with CDS Clearing and Depository Services Inc.(CDS) to offer new corporate action benefits including dividend, redemption and reorganization services.

The Canadian-Link Services, which went into operation in 2005, supports the processing and settlement of transactions in Canadian dollars at The Depository Trust Company (DTC), a DTCC subsidiary. This helps eliminate problems associated with maintaining split inventories in Canadian and U.S. securities and enables customers to concentrate all U.S. and Canadian security positions in their DTC accounts.

“The new services significantly expand the Canadian-Link Services program by offering our customers new processing capabilities for income, redemption and corporate action payments, and it gives them the option of settling in either U.S. or Canadian dollars,” said Patrick Kirby, DTCC managing director for Asset Services. The services were launched in July 2008.

“Many of the banks and broker/dealers participating in Canadian-Link Services requested that we expand our custodial duties to bring further efficiencies to their work processes,” Kirby added. Under the original program, DTC customers could clear and settle Canadian dollars at DTC, but they had to turn to CDS or other custodians for corporate actions.

The expansion enables DTC customers to receive and make payments on all corporate actions events for eligible Canadian issues – approximately 1,000 are now eligible – including tender offers and rights issues in Canadian dollars or a mix of U.S. and Canadian dollars.

For interest and dividend payments, DTC customers also can take advantage of DTC’s Elective Dividend Service (EDS). With EDS, DTC customers will be able to obtain “at-source” tax relief for Canadian issues. At-source relief allows DTC customers to pay the lower tax rate at the time of a dividend payment, rather than a higher or maximum rate, which would require a tax reclaim to recover the over-withheld amount. This allows investors to eliminate the expensive and time-consuming processing associated with cross-border hard-copy tax reclamation.

“In addition to the tax advantages the new settlement system offers, the expanded settlement process that DTC has initiated will make for one-stop shopping for many participants,” said Kirby. “It limits the interfaces and the repositioning they will have to do, streamlining cross-border trading and making clearance and settlement and corporate actions processing more efficient.”

Tropics Software Deploys VMware Infrastrcture

Tropics Software Technologies (Tropics Software), a provider of workers compensation software, has deployed VMware’s virtualization and management suite, VMware Infrastructure 3, as the foundation of a robust business-continuity solution.

Headquartered in Sarasota, FL, Tropics Software offers workers’ compensation software to benefits administrators and insurance companies throughout the U.S. As the company has grown, its server environment also grew to include more than 30 physical machines, and the company’s data-protection requirements could no longer be addressed by simple tape backups. Tropics needed a comprehensive business-continuity solution and a way to contain server sprawl. As a small business with under 50 employees, Tropics searched for a solution that was as practical and affordable as it was reliable. VMware Infrastructure allowed the company to easily virtualize mission-critical applications, such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office, and custom applications running off of Oracle databases, and migrate the applications from physical servers to virtual machines.

Using networked storage, Tropics Software is able to take snapshots of its virtual machines automatically multiple times each day and back them up to a remote location, providing a high degree of data protection.

“Most of the business-continuity solutions on the market seemed to be really expensive or really complicated — usually both,” said Paul Troyer, Web and Systems Administrator for Tropics Software. “The VMware platform was simple and straightforward. We were able to hit the ground running and implement a reliable and scalable business-continuity plan simply and quickly.”

In addition to shoring up its business-continuity capabilities, VMware Infrastructure has significantly streamlined Tropic Software’s IT infrastructure. By consolidating its physical servers onto just two VMware ESX hypervisors, the company has experienced a significant decrease in power and cooling costs. At the same time, this consolidated virtual infrastructure has enabled the company to defer the purchase of new hardware and has increased the ease of administration.

“With VMware VirtualCenter, I can see and manage all of my virtual machines from one location,” said Troyer. “Additionally, features like VMotion let me do live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another to maximize application availability. These tools save a lot of administration time, which helps level the playing field for companies like ours that have a small IT staff.”

Chi-X

Chi-X is a "multilateral trading facility" (MTF). Licencing by the UK's Financial Services Authority means it has been passported through to provide services to firms throughout the European Economic Area due to the MiFiD.

The owners, (majority owned by Instinet Europe) claim their platform is of a faster, cheaper and higher capacity alternative to trading on-exchange. Chi-X was the first order driven pan-European matching engine and central limit order book or Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) to start trading.

Details of claims are:

TRADING ON Chi-X IS CHEAPER - Equity trading is up to ten times cheaper (estimated cost advantages based on an Chi-X internal review) than trading on Europe's traditional stock exchanges. Built on a low cost business model, Chi-X offers lower explicit transaction costs [Click here to find out more]

TRADING ON Chi-X IS FASTER - Traders can execute trades on Chi-X up to ten times faster than major European exchange order driven systems measured by Transact Tools

MiFID COMPLIANCE - Market participants have the opportunity to route orders and trade report to help satisfy MiFID best execution and transparency requirements

STANDARDISED CONNECTIVITY - Chi-X connectivity is provided using the FIX (Financial Information eXchange) protocol 4.2

TRADING ON Chi-X REDUCES YOUR MARKET IMPACT - Traders can slice and represent their orders across a number of liquidity pools to reduce their market impact

REDUCTION OF IMPLICIT TRANSACTION COSTS - Chi-X could help reduce implicit transaction costs

WIDER TRADING OPPORTUNITIES - We offer trading opportunities when the main markets are closed

ARBITRAGE OPPORTUNITIES - Trading on multiple venues in the same instruments offers arbitrage opportunities

TIMING AND OPPORTUNITY COSTS ARE REDUCED - Real time clearing and greater certainty of execution significantly reduces trading costs

LIQUIDITY FLOW - In addition to the flow of market participants who can smart route to Chi-X as part of their MiFID compliant best execution policy



Chi-X


The Chi-X core is comprised of three primary applications: the Matching Engine, FIX, market data connectivity and a number of secondary applications. The Matching Engine is a proprietary system that resides on the Linux operating system.

Alternative trading systems

Chi-X
Multilateral trading facility developed following MiFiD. Majority owned by Instinet Europe
Direct Edge
US-based multilateral trading faciltiy or trading platform.
Equiduct
Multilateral trading facility majority owned by Borse Berlin and Burgundy. Nordic equities markets are the main target.
European Multilateral Clearing Facility
Clearing unit set up by Fortis for European alternative trading systems.
MTF
Multilateral Trading Facility
Nasdaq OMX Europe
Pan Euopean Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) backed by Nasdaq OMX
PEX
Small multilateral trading platform for the Portugese market

Dark Liquidity Trading

An electronic crossing network created to provide institutional investors with optimised execution for their Asian block trades, minimising both transaction costs and market impact. As a dark pool of liquidity, BlocSec gives traders the ability to place orders with complete anonymity, allowing zero information leakage into the market.

Alternative trading platform in dark liquidity. Developed following MiFiD. Founder banks are : BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Société Générale.

Merrill Lynch in Auction Rate Deal

Merrill Lynch has reached a global resolution with the New York Attorney General and state securities regulators to resolve issues related to sales of auction-rate securities. The firm also reached an agreement in principle with the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Under this agreement, Merrill Lynch will accelerate the plans it to purchase auction rate securities from its retail clients. Merrill Lynch individual clients, not-for-profit organization clients (including all charitable, educational and religious organizations) and small business clients who had on February 13, 2008 less than $4 million in assets at Merrill Lynch will have a 15-month period beginning on October 1, 2008 and ending on January 15, 2010 in which to sell their ARS to Merrill Lynch at par. In addition, we have agreed to move the start date to purchase ARS from other eligible clients from January 15, 2009 to January 2, 2009. Merrill Lynch’s offer to purchase ARS will remain open through January 15, 2010.

It is estimated that Merrill Lynch retail clients eligible for the October purchase currently hold an estimated $4 billion in ARS, which Merrill Lynch expects to be reduced to under $3.25 billion by October as a result of announced and anticipated issuer redemptions.

Between continuing redemptions, clearing auctions and the firm's offer, the firm estimates that approximately 90 percent of our retail clients who held ARS at Merrill Lynch in February will either have been redeemed, refinanced or will have the choice to sell their ARS to the firm by October.

Openstream Launch Mobile Trading Tools

Openstream Inc. ( http://www.openstream.com/ ), a provider of multimodal information management solutions for the enterprises and Omnesys Technologies (India) Pvt. Ltd., a leading Brokerage and Trading Platform provider in India, today announced the joint launch of Openstream's new Cue-Me(TM) multimodal browser based brokerage & trading solutions for their customers.

The multimodal solution would greatly enhance the usability of their joint offering to brokerage houses. Key features of the service include: access to NSE, BSE and NCDEX markets; local financial news; real-time quotes; currencies, interest rates, and global indices; advanced order functionality, and real-time updates of Omnesys' portfolio.

Openstream's Cue-me(TM) enhances the Omnesys's offerings by maximizing the access to its NEST Brokerage Platform services. The integrated solution today provides Omnesys' customers speech and multimodal access to the service information they need from all the popular mobile devices, such as BlackBerry, Nokia-Symbian and Windows Mobile devices. The solution will soon be made available on iPhone devices.

"The strength of our joint offering is in that it enables us to offer rich and convenient interface to our applications that are independent of delivery devices, their footprints, networks and carriers. Our customers appreciate the power of using this multi-modal approach as it can provide speech capability to our trading applications on mobile devices with small screens and limited input methods, enabling the users to quickly access information related to their executed trades, stock quotes, portfolio and market news by talking and tapping on their devices," says Shrikant Pandit, CEO of Omnesys Technologies (India).
Speaking on the launch of the new mobile brokerage solution, Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Vice-chairman, AnandRathi Securities, one of the leading wealth-management companies in Asia, said, "We have always been looking for exceeding the expectations of our clientele and Openstream's multimodal solutions delivered on Omnesys's NEST Platform help us meet the growing needs of our customers."

The joint solution is being launched through all Omnesys' customers in India.

Derivatives - C

Call
An option contract giving the holder the right to buy the underlying security at a specified price for a certain, fixed period of time.
Capped-Style Option
Option with an established profit cap. The cap price is equal to the option's strike price plus a cap interval for a call option or the strike price minus a cap interval for a put option. Exercised automatically when the underlying security closes above or below the cap price, depending on whether it is a call or a put.
CEO
Chief Executive Officer
CFO
Chief Financial Officer
Chi-X
Multilateral trading facility developed following MiFid. Majority owned by Instinet Europe
CII
Council of Institutional Investors
CIO
Chief Investment Officer
Close
End of trading session period. Also called the Closing Range. The official close is designated as the high and low prices or bids and offers recorded during the period.
Closing Purchase
Transaction entered into to reduce or eliminate a short position in a given series of options.
Commission
One off fee brokerage fee to a customer when a futures or options on futures position is liquidated either by offset or delivery.
Contract
1) Unit of trading for a financial or commodity future.
2) Bilateral agreement between buyer and seller (parties) of a futures or options on futures transaction. Defined by the exchange.
Contract Month
The month in which futures contracts may be satisfied by making or accepting delivery.
Covered Call Option Writing
Trading strategy involving simultaneously selling call options and owning an equivalent position in the underlying security. The reverse is to sells a put option and shorting the underlying security.

Derivatives D - I

Day Order
Order placed for execution within one trading session. Automatically cancelled if it can not be executed within the day.
Day Trading
Within one day establishing and liquidating the same position or positions. No positions should be established at the days end.
Deferred
Back Months
Delivery
Tender and receipt of an actual commodity or financial instrument, or cash in settlement of a futures contract.
Derivative Security
Financial security whose value is determined in part from an another security's (the underlying security) value and characteristic.
Direct Edge
US-based multilateral trading faciltiy or trading platform.
Equiduct
Multilateral trading facility majority owned by Borse Berlin and Burgundy. Nordic equities markets are the main target.
ETF
Exchange-Traded Fund
European Multilateral Clearing Facility
Clearing unit set up by Fortis for European alternative trading systems.
European-style Options
Option contracts that can only be exercised during a specified period of time just prior to their expiration.
Exercise Settlement Amount
Difference between the exercise price of the option and the exercise settlement value of the index on the day an exercise notice is tendered , multiplied by the index multiplier.
Expiration Cycle
The dates on which options on an underlying security expire. A given option is assigned to one of three cycles, January, February or March.
Expiration Date
Date on which an option and the right to exercise it, cease to exist.
FASAC
Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council
FinAnalytica
Vendor of portfolio construction and risk management analytics
Financial Supervisory Commission
Taiwan: financial regulator
Floor Broker
Licensed member of an Exchange, who is paid a fee for executing orders for Clearing Members or their customers.
Floor Trader
Also known as a "local". Exchange member who only trades for his own account.
Futures
All contracts covering purchase and sale of financial instruments or physical commodities for future delivery on a commodity futures exchange.
Futures Commission Agent
Engages in soliciting or accepting handling orders for the purchase or sale of futures contracts , subject to the rules of a futures exchange and, who, in connection with solicitation or acceptance or orders, accepts any money or securities to margin any resulting trades or contracts. Can be a firm or person.
Grant Date
Stock Options:- "The date at which an employer and an employee reach a mutual understanding of the key terms and conditions of a share-based payment award." Defined in SFAS No 123 (Revised 2004) (123R)
Holder
Purchaser of an option
IFRS
International Financial Reporting Standards
IFRS 3
Accounting standard for "business combinations" or Merger and Acquisitions transactions. First standard written jointly by International Accounting Standards Board and the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board.
In-the-money
Occurs if the strike price of a call option is less than the market price of the underlying security. For put options the strike price has to be higher than the market price of the underlying security for it to be in-the money.
Intrinsic Value
Amount by which an option is in-the-money.
ISDA
International Swaps and Derivatives Association
iTraxx Crossover Index
Tracks the cost of insuring the debt of mostly junk-rated European companies.

Derivatives J - S

KKR
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
LEAPS
Long-Term Equity Anticipation Securities
Limit Order
Order from a customer to a broker specifying a price; only if the if the market reaches or betters the price can the order be executed.
Liquidation
Transaction offsetting or closing out a long or short futures or options position.
Long Hedge
Purchase of a futures contract in anticipation of an actual purchase in the cash market.
Long Position
An investor holds more contracts than he has sold.
LTCM
Long Term Capital Management
Margin Requirement for Options
Amount an uncovered (naked) option writer is required to deposit and maintain to cover a position. Calculated
Market Order
Order for immediate execution given to a broker to buy or sell at the best obtainable price.
Mark-To-Market
Daily adjustment of margin accounts to reflect profit and loss.
Minimum Price Fluctuation
Smallest increment of price movement possible in trading a given contract. It is also referred to as "lead month".
MTF
Multilateral Trading Facility
Nasdaq OMX Europe
Pan Euopean Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) backed by Nasdaq OMX
Nearby
Nearest active trading month of a futures or options on futures contract.
Offer
Price at which an investor is willing to sell a futures or options contract. Offset buying if one has sold, or selling if one has bought, a futures or options on futures contract.
PEX
Small multilateral trading platform for the Portugese market.
Prime Broker
Institution, usually an investment bank that offering a variety of services to hedge funds or other institutions.
Prime Brokerage
Bundle of services offered by an investment bank to large institutional clients or hedge funds. It is possible for a firm to have more than one prime broker. The firm is not obligated to put all of its business through the prime broker. The variety of services include, but is not limited to execution of trades, settlement, financing and custody.
Private Equity Intelligence
Research group specialising in the private equity arena.
Quantifi
provider of analytics and risk management solutions for the global credit markets.
REITS
Real-Estate Investment Trusts
Repo
The practice of loaning out shares in return for cash.
Risk Assessment
One of five components of internal control according to the COSO Internal Control Framework
Risks faced by the company have to be recognized. Objectives have to be set, integrated into the value-chain. To achieve the objectives, risks have to be identified, analyzed and develop methods to manage them.
SEC
Securities and Exchange Commission.
SOX
Shorthand for Sarbanes-Oxley.
Structured Notes
Derivatives-linked bonds designed to deliver high returns over a fixed period.
Synthetic Collateralised Debt Obligations
Repackaged portfolios of credit derivatives.

Derivatives - T

Terra Firma
UK private equity firm.
TOCOM
Tokyo Commodity Exchange
Trichet, Jean-Claude
President of the European Central Bank
TSE
Tokyo Stock Exchange
Turquoise
Alternative trading platform in dark liquidity. Developed following MiFiD. Founder banks are : BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Société Générale.

Derivatives - B

Back-months
Futures or options on futures months being traded that are furthest from expiration.
Bear
Person who believes prices will move lower
Bear Market
Market in which prices are moving lower.
Beta
Hedge Funds: market exposure
Bid
Price that market participants are willing to pay.
BlocSec
An electronic crossing network created to provide institutional investors with optimised execution for their Asian block trades, minimising both transaction costs and market impact. As a dark pool of liquidity, BlocSec gives traders the ability to place orders with complete anonymity, allowing zero information leakage into the market.
Bull
Person who believes prices will move higher
Bull Market
Market in which prices are moving higher.
Buy on Close
Buy at the end of a trading session at a price within the closing range.
Buy on Opening
Buy at the beginning of a trading session at a price within the opening range.

S&P 500 and S&P MidCap 400

Standard & Poor's will make the following changes to the S&P 500 and S&P MidCap 400 indices:

S&P MidCap 400 constituent CF Industries Holdings Inc. (NYSE:CF) will replace Electronic Data Systems Corp. (NYSE:EDS) in the S&P 500, and SAIC Inc. (NYSE:SAI) will replace CF Industries in the S&P MidCap 400 after the close of trading on a date to be announced. Electronic Data Systems is being acquired by S&P 100 and S&P 500 constituent Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) in a transaction that is still pending final approvals.

CME Completes NYMEX Acquisition

CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ:CME) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of NYMEX Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:NMX) . The combined companies will provide customers around the world with access to all major benchmark asset classes, including interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities and metals. CME Group Class A common stock will continue to trade on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol "CME." NYMEX Holdings, Inc. common stock is being delisted and will no longer trade on the NYSE.

The merger creates a company with pro forma 2007 annual revenue of $2.7 billion and average trading volume of approximately 14.2 million contracts per day in the first two quarters of 2008. Customers from more than 85 countries trade CME Group products, primarily electronically. Corporate headquarters of the combined company will remain in Chicago at 20 S. Wacker Drive. CME Group's New York office will be located at the NYMEX World Headquarters, One North End Avenue.
"We are extremely pleased to complete our transaction and welcome NYMEX and COMEX into CME Group," said CME Group Executive Chairman Terry Duffy. "This is another milestone for CME Group and NYMEX in our long and successful histories. Together, we will continue operating the largest and most diverse derivatives exchange in the world. We are extremely grateful for the support of NYMEX shareholders, members and employees. As a united company, we are well positioned for a new phase of growth, innovation and product development that will benefit our customers, shareholders and market users around the world."

"We are very proud to have now completed the consolidation of three of the world's most important and successful derivatives exchanges," said CME Group Chief Executive Officer Craig Donohue. "Our NYMEX and COMEX acquisition further strengthens CME Group's leading position in global financial markets and provides significant and valuable new growth opportunities for our shareholders, customers and members. CME Group has a strong track record of delivering cost synergies and realizing revenue and growth opportunities from consolidation transactions and we now look forward to the integration of our two great companies."

Derivatives - A

ABCDS
A credit default swap based on an Asset-Backed Security itself based on relatively risky home equity loans (U.S.) In effect a type of insurance against default on the underlying ABS.
ABCP
Taiwan: Asset-Backed Commercial Paper
ABI
Association of British Insurers
Alpha
Hedge Funds: the incremental return above the market that a manager generates.
American-Style Option
Option contract which can be excercised at any time between the purchase date and the expiration date. Most commonly exchange-traded option in the U.S.
Arbitrage
Simultaneous sale and purchase of identical or equivalent financial instruments or commodity futures to benefit from a discrepancy in their prices.
Assignment
Receipt of an exercise notice by an option writer (seller) that obligates him to sell (in the case of a call) or purchase (in the case of a put) the underlying security at the specified strike price.
At-the-money
Occurs if the strike price of the option is equal to the market price of underlying security.

BlocSec In Hong Kong Expansion

BlocSec, the first Asian dark pool to cater to both the buy side and the sell side launched by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets earlier this year, is now offering block trading services in the Hong Kong market in addition to those already available in Singapore and Japan.

In the first week since the launch of the service in Hong Kong to existing CLSA Group clients on 14 August 2008, more than US$1.1 billion of liquidity has passed through the BlocSec platform at an average of US$243 million per day. The recent successful crosses in Hong Kong add to those already achieved in Singapore and Japan.

The service offers both buy and sell side participants an anonymous crossing network that eliminates information leakage and reduces the potential for negative market impact. Since its launch, more than 75 companies have signed up to trade via the BlocSec platform.

BlocSec CEO Ned Phillips said he was highly encouraged by the response to the BlocSec service and to the launch of the Hong Kong market. Since launching, BlocSec has seen liquidity in a total of 356 different stocks, with an average cross size of US$1.15 million.

“There is clearly demand for this type of service in Asia. Dark pools have become an essential part of trading strategy in the US and Europe and we are excited to be one of the first dark pools in Asia. We firmly believe that clients benefit greatly from improved liquidity and execution through the BlocSec platform,” Phillips said. BlocSec is built on the latest technology to provide an electronic marketplace with continuous and high speed order matching and execution. The minimum order is USD$1 million on a firm order basis only. A choice of crossing options is available from the traditional mid-point, passive and aggressive, through session-based and full day VWAP, as well as a last-close option.

Clients customize when and how to interact with the system. They can connect from their existing OMS using FIX, via the Bloomberg EMS or using the BlocSec web-based application front-end.

MetaBit Connectivity to JSDA OTC Reporting

MetaBit announces the delivery of a standardised FIX interface to the new JSDA (Japan Securities Dealers Association) file based OTC Reporting System scheduled to be launched late October 2008. The new system will replace the current OTC Reporting at JASDAQ, Japan’s OTC exchange, which is expected to merge with OSE in 2009.

MetaBit will deliver the production version of the new FIX gateway to its client base on September 26, 2008 to allow time for testing. The new product will support all available standard versions of FIX.

The FIX gateway to JSDA OTC Reporting complements MetaBit’s Alpha product line that provides high performance FIX-to-native exchange connectivity to TSE, OSE, JASDAQ and TOCOM (Tokyo Commodity Exchange). The technology is built on the world leading Orc CameronFIX platform.

“The upcoming OTC Reporting function requires Japan’s exchange members to report all OTC trades within five minutes of execution,” explains Daniel Burgin, MetaBit CEO. “The regulatory importance of timely reporting was the driver for this new FIX solution, in answer to our clients’ needs. It has been a somewhat unusual move, as the new reporting system is file based. Nonetheless, MetaBit’s new FIX interface to JSDA’s OTC Reporting will be critical to deliver a complete and standardised FIX solution for Japan’s markets. As a result we have seen immediate demand in the market place.”

In Japan, MetaBit is the only software provider of pure FIX to native exchange connectivity for all listed products at all major exchanges (TSE, OSE, JASDAQ, TOCOM).

Northern Trust Next Generation Risk Tool

Northern Trust has enhanced its Fundamentals performance and risk tool with a dashboard application that provides institutional clients with a direct and easy view of the performance information they deem most important.

“Clients are seeking an online snapshot of key performance indicators to help them oversee complex investment programs efficiently,” said Paul d’Ouville, global director of Investment Risk and Analytical Services at Northern Trust. “The Fundamentals Dashboard includes daily and monthly analytical results and builds on the existing foundation of our market-leading performance, risk and attribution data. Allowing clients to define what is important to them and summarizing the information in a thoughtful way, Fundamentals provides mass customization on a flexible infrastructure that is crucial to investment decision makers today.”

Fundamentals is available to asset managers and institutional investors, such as pension funds, endowments, foundations and corporations. The first phase of the dashboard includes returns, characteristics, risk statistics, and market values; later phases will add charting and further customization. The Fundamentals Dashboard is delivered via Passport®, Northern Trust’s online data platform.

As a part of its client focus philosophy, Northern Trust has provided risk and performance services for over three decades. Northern Trust’s Investment Risk & Analytical Services capabilities include risk monitoring and measurement, performance evaluation and other specialty services, with continuing investment in research and client-focused product development.

Penserra Access for BIDS Trading

Penserra Securities, a New York-based agency broker for institutional investors, and BIDS Trading, the alternative trading system (ATS) designed to increase competition and liquidity in the U.S. equity block trading market, are pleased to announce an agreement that provides Penserra’s clients with direct access to BIDS Trading’s crossing system. The arrangement establishes Penserra as the first government-certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) to offer sponsored institutional access to BIDS Trading.

Since its start, Penserra has offered its clients, which include several large U.S. pension systems, access to the firm’s accomplished, trusted, single-stock and portfolio trading desks. Through its agreement with BIDS Trading, Penserra customers are now able to directly source block liquidity in the BIDS Trading ATS. This provides institutions with MBE targets a convenient way to boost their MBE use without forcing them to avoid direct-access options.

BIDS Trading, also based in New York, was founded in September 2006 by a consortium of twelve leading financial-services firms. Later this year, BIDS Trading and NYSE Euronext will launch a joint venture which will allow dark orders to interact with both displayed and reserve orders from the NYSE, in an attempt to improve execution quality and access to liquidity for block trading.

“We’re very excited to be able to provide our clients with sponsored access to the non-displayed liquidity in BIDS Trading,” said George Madrigal, managing director and co-founder of Penserra, and a 13-year veteran of Barclays Global Investors, where he served as a portfolio manager and head of transition management. “In addition to our brokerage experience, our management team has deep roots on the buy side, so we truly understand the value of direct access to a venue like BIDS Trading that allows for anonymous, block executions.”

“The connection of Penserra to our block trading facility furthers our goal of creating the most efficient trading venue and deepest liquidity pool possible,” said Tim Mahoney, CEO of BIDS Trading. “We are truly pleased to provide investors using Penserra with the ability to access BIDS Trading’s open, flexible platform.”

Tbricks Connects to Chi-X Europe

Tbricks, the provider of next generation automated trading systems, today announced that it has added Chi-X Europe to its list of certified trading venues.

The Tbricks solution has been devised for automated proprietary trading and targets prop trading firms, trading users at investment banks and high-tech hedge funds. They can now leverage Tbricks connectivity to ensure minimal latency to the Chi-X Europe trading venue.

Jonas Hansbo, CEO of Tbricks, says: “We see a huge market interest in Chi-X Europe—particularly from the growing number of proprietary traders who depend on the lowest latency performance. That's why we've ensured that our customers can connect to Chi-X Europe and provide integration to the Tbricks Genesis strategy engines with a latency of less than a millisecond.”

“Through our streamlined business model, institutional investors are able to trade a wide range of European equities and achieve low-cost, high-speed trade execution, as well as potential price improvement. We are pleased to provide access to our market through Tbricks’ advanced automated trading solution, and welcome Tbricks to our growing list of certified vendors.” comments Hirander Misra, chief operating officer, Chi-X Europe.

New Risk Terms

Ab Initio
From the beginning.
Accident Year
The calendar or accounting year in which a loss occurs.
Accreditation
The process by which a firm may obtain registration as a Lloyd’s broker.
Accredited Lloyd’s broker
A Lloyd's broker
Active Underwriter
The individual at the underwriting box with principal authority to accept insurance and reinsurance risk on behalf of the members of a syndicate.
"Actual Total Loss
This term derives from section 57 of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 (MIA) and refers to situations in marine insurance where -

(a) the subject matter of the insurance is destroyed;
(b) the subject matter of the insurance is so damaged as to be no longer be capable of still being described as the thing insured; or

(c) the insured is deprived of the subject matter of the insurance forever.



Section 58 of the MIA adds that where there is no news of a missing ship then after a reasonable period an actual loss may be presumed."
Adjustment Premium
An additional or return premium that is payable in relation to a deposit premium depending on the performance of an insurance or reinsurance contract.
Advantest
Supplier of automatic test equipment to the semiconductor industry. Advantest's SoC, logic, memory, mixed-signal and RF testers and device handlers are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor fabrication lines in the world. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its North American subsidiary in 1982 and its European subsidiary in 1984. More information is available at www.advantest.com.
"Agent
Insurance:

Someone who acts for another person (the principal) usually for reward.

There are four main classes of agent that may be involved in the underwriting of insurance and reinsurance risks by Lloyd’s underwriters: members’ agents, managing agents, brokers and coverholders. In addition, there are Lloyd’s agents which are independent businesses that provide surveys and loss adjusting services to managing agents, insurance companies and others on a worldwide basis. "
Aggregate
Total (limit of indemnity, premium, retention etc).
Aggregate excess of loss reinsurance
A form of excess of loss reinsurance in which the excess and the limit of liability are expressed as annual aggregate amounts.
Agreed Business Plan
A syndicate business plan that has been approved by or on behalf of Lloyd’s Franchise Board. No managing agent may underwrite for a syndicate without an agreed syndicate business plan. Agreed syndicate business plans may be amended with the agreement of the Franchise Board or someone acting on its behalf.
Agreed Value Policy
An insurance contract under which the insurer agrees to pay the insured a stated amount in the event of the total loss of the property insured without any adjustment for depreciation or appreciation.
Aligned Member
An insurance contract under which the insurer agrees to pay the insured a stated amount in the event of the total loss of the property insured without any adjustment for depreciation or appreciation.
All Risks
A property insurance which covers any accidental loss or damage that is not specifically excluded under the policy.
Allocated Capacity
This may refer to a member’s allocated capacity or syndicate allocated capacity
Annual Accounting
The reporting of syndicate results on a calendar year basis, with profit taking being restricted to earned premiums.
Annual Venture
This term refers to the reconstitution of a syndicate as an annual business venture where insurance and reinsurance business is written on a year of account basis.
Appreciation
In the context of property insurance an increase in value of the property insured.
Approved Person
An individual who has been approved by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to perform a FSA controlled function for an authorised person
Approved Run-Off Company
A company that is permitted by Lloyd’s to perform specified functions that would normally be performed by a managing agent of a run-off syndicate on behalf of that agent or a substitute agent.
Assured
Another name for an insured.
Attachment Date
Another term for inception date, being the date on which an insurance or reinsurance contract comes into force.
"Attorney In Fact
A person appointed by a power of attorney to act on behalf of another person.



A Lloyd’s attorney in fact is a representative appointed by Lloyd’s to represent Lloyd’s and Lloyd’s underwriters in a particular country or US state. An attorney in fact may be a natural person or a company and performs a similar role to a Lloyd’s General Representative."
Authorised Person
A person (usually a firm) that has been approved by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to carry on one or more FSA regulated activities.
Avaya
Avaya delivers Intelligent Communications solutions that help companies transform their businesses to achieve marketplace advantage. More than 1 million businesses worldwide, including more than 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R), use Avaya solutions for IP Telephony, Unified Communications, Contact Centers and Communications-Enabled Business Processes. Avaya Global Services provides comprehensive service and support for companies, small to large.
Average
If the sum insured under non-marine insurance is expressed to be “subject to average” and that sum is less than the value of the subject matter of the insurance then any claim that is agreed under the policy will be reduced proportionately to reflect the under insurance.
"Section 81 of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 say that an insured shall be his own insurer as regards any under insurance."

In marine insurance the term average may also refer to one of two types of loss, general average and particular average.
Avoidance of a contract ab initio
The cancellation of an insurance or reinsurance contract from its beginning by an insurer or reinsurer on the basis of the misrepresentation and/or non-disclosure of material facts. The result is that the insurer/reinsurer has no liability under the contract but must repay the premium to the insured/reassured.
BlocSec
An electronic crossing network created to provide institutional investors with optimised execution for their Asian block trades, minimising both transaction costs and market impact. As a dark pool of liquidity, BlocSec gives traders the ability to place orders with complete anonymity, allowing zero information leakage into the market.
Chi-X
Multilateral trading facility developed following MiFid. Majority owned by Instinet Europe
Demand Management
Demand Management, Inc. (DMI) is a global resource for software, support, services and training for maximizing profits in manufacturing, distribution and retail operations. More global supply chains depend on DMI's Demand Solutions than any other system for forecasting, demand planning and point-of-sale analysis.
Direct Edge
US-based multilateral trading faciltiy or trading platform.
Equiduct
Multilateral trading facility majority owned by Borse Berlin and Burgundy. Nordic equities markets are the main target.
European Multilateral Clearing Facility
Clearing unit set up by Fortis for European alternative trading systems.
MTF
Multilateral Trading Facility
Nasdaq OMX Europe
Pan Euopean Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) backed by Nasdaq OMX
New Generation Computing
NGC(R) is a leading Fashion, Apparel, Footwear and Retail software company. NGC's SQL Series is a comprehensive suite of "end-to-end" solutions for PLM (e-PLM), Global Sourcing (e-SPS(R)) and ERP (RedHorse(R)). The SQL Series provides real-time visibility to product information, accelerates speed to market, and enables quality control throughout the supply chain to help deliver superior products. NGC customers include leading brands and retailers such as VF Corporation(R), A|X Armani Exchange(R), Carter's(R), Casual Male Retail Group(R), Maggy London, Goody's Family Clothing, Hugo Boss(R), Dick's Sporting Goods, Isda & Co., Tristan & America(R), Axis(R), Parigi Group, Wilson's Leather(R), and many others.
PEX
Small multilateral trading platform for the Portugese market.
T2000
Advantest's T2000 test system is designed specifically to test complex processors, consumer and other SoC devices, and is used by chipmakers worldwide for testing GPUs, CPUs and other sophisticated products. The T2000 is easily configurable for testing microcontrollers, microprocessors, RF and mixed-signal devices, thanks to an expanding menu of test modules enabling unprecedented customization of test capabilities with unmatched support for parallel testing. These features make the T2000 an ideal test system for IDMs, fabless companies, sub-cons and foundries, who require a flexible platform with interchangeable modules that are easily adapted to changing device requirements
Turquoise
Alternative trading platform in dark liquidity. Developed following MiFiD. Founder banks are : BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Société Générale.

RTS Realtime Increases DMA Access to Vienna

RTS Realtime Systems Group (RTS), a trading solutions provider, today announced that Raiffeisen Centrobank AG, an issuing bank in Austria, has recently expanded its services by offering Direct Market Access (DMA) to the Vienna Stock Exchange, enabling other RTS customers to access this Xetra electronic trading platform based exchange.

RTS’ RTD Connect solution is easy to deploy between RTS customers, simply requiring a “plug ‘n play interface” between two RTD servers. Until now, Raiffeisen Centrobank has been using the high-performance trading platform RTD Realtime Trading Desktop for its proprietary trading.

Günter Englhart, responsible for order routing for Raiffeisen Centrobank, said: “With this new offering, we are able to further strengthen our order routing reach, providing customers the full scope of functionality available on Xetra Vienna. Further routing destinations are available on request.”

Said Christian Zahm, Sales Manager for RTS in Frankfurt: “We are pleased to deepen our long-term relationship with Raiffeisen Centrobank and to offer a new benefit to other customers as we extend our RTD Connect Network. With this endeavor, we now have an additional partner offering connectivity to other RTS customers.”

CDC Adds to Suite

CDC Software, announced today the addition of Respond DataMart, Respond Analytics and Respond Report Packs to its CDC Respond complaint and feedback management suite of enterprise products.

The new applications, which complement the existing CDC Respond business intelligence toolset of Respond Intelligence and Respond Insight, are based on the Microsoft business intelligence platform, providing CDC Respond customers with high levels of accessibility, usability and the combined power of industry-leading products.

Respond DataMart is the cornerstone of the new CDC Respond business intelligence offerings. Respond Data Mart helps to automate and simplify tasks associated with the maintenance and management of a ‘data mart’, an analytical data store designed to focus on a specific business function such as complaints management. Respond DataMart also provides access to the transactional complaint and feedback data captured through CDC Respond’s established products, enabling rapid response to user queries through optimised, pre-aggregated and calculated data.

Respond Analytics is an integrated and ready-to-use set of analytical and reporting tools enabling the user to quickly and easily create intelligent dashboards and insightful reports. While some business intelligence tools demand significant levels of expertise from their users, Respond Analytics is designed to be used by anyone, helping employees to follow trends, create several types of analyses and make better, faster and more reliable business decisions.
Respond Report Packs provide sets of pre-packaged report templates based on market research into the needs of particular vertical markets.

Adra Match CTO

Bjorn Loe has been appointed as Chief Technology Officer in London for Adra Match.

Bjorn has a computer science degree and has been working at Adra for the last 13 years in Northern Europe where he has been working in the reconciliation of accounts for large corporations and banking clients.

Mike Coppack managing Director of Adra match says” the appointment of Bjorn in the UK will assist us in our effort to provide world class support to clients in Great Britain that use our reconciliation platforms”

United America Selects Duck Creek

United America Indemnity Group, Inc. (“United America”) has selected Duck Creek’s Policy Administration Commercial ISO Lines Solution.

Key to United America’s selection of the Duck Creek solution was the availability of Duck Creek’s pre-built ISO products (templates) coupled with the solutions’ flexible and configurable tool-based platform. This Duck Creek offering includes a full inventory of rates, rules and over 20,000+ forms. United America will also utilize Duck Creek’s standard support to ensure the seamless integration of the new ISO monthly circulars. United America will utilize Duck Creek’s solution for Commercial Package Policies (CPP), which includes Commercial Auto, Commercial Property, Crime, Inland Marine, and General Liability.

United America’s Chief Information/Administrative Officer, Ed Rafter, commented, “After an extensive market search to evaluate software solutions, the decision to select the Duck Creek solution was based on their ISO lines support, system performance/scalability, breadth of functionality and the flexibility of the system. With the Duck Creek configuration tools, we will easily be able to support a strong portfolio of new products, while taking advantage of the wealth of policy administration functionality and meeting our aggressive performance requirements. Lastly, Duck Creek’s Professional Services Organization is not only rich in technology knowledge, but also in insurance industry practices which was another added benefit in our selection. We are looking forward to a long and highly successful relationship.”

“With United America taking a keen focus on the entire cost of rolling out and supporting a Policy Administration system for years to come, we are a great fit. Our prebuilt ISO lines templates will enable United America to get up and running quickly in a cost effective manner. Couple this with our proven ISO subscription service, which provides for regular/monthly circular updates, including all modifications to rates, rules and forms across all states. Having Duck Creek maintain all the modifications allows the carrier to truly focus on their core competence of driving premium growth. Today’s announcement demonstrates that we continue to gain momentum in the Policy Administration market as more carriers look for the benefits of a next-generation solution,” said Curtis Gekle, EVP for Sales and Marketing at Duck Creek.

Bank Of Beijing Selects IPC

IPC Systems, Inc., a provider of indispensable communications solutions to financial services firms, today announced that Bank of Beijing has chosen the IQ/MAX, IPC’s , Voice over IP-enabled, high-performance desktop tool for its trading floor.

Bank of Beijing evaluated numerous vendors in order to select a platform that would best meet the requirements for connectivity, security and dependability for its 25-position floor. Having formerly relied on PBX phones, the Bank’s main focus was on transitioning to VoIP technology in order to support a technologically modern trading floor over the long-term. The IQ/MAX turret provides the Bank’s traders with several powerful features including call logs, caller ID, updateable displays and an assortment of customizable options that competitors could not offer. The IPC solution allowed the Bank to install top-of-the-line technology that not only would serve its immediate demands, but also have the capacity to grow as the Bank’s business expands. The transition to the recently installed floor went smoothly, with the full rollout taking less than one month to complete.

“The Bank of Beijing prides itself in using technology in innovative ways to enhance our business, and we believe that IQ/MAX offers a competitive advantage,” said a spokesperson for the Bank of Beijing. “We are confident that IPC’s global presence and industry expertise will help us stay on the leading edge of technology so that we can offer our clients the best trading services available in the marketplace.”

FlexTrade Systems

Founded in 1996, FlexTrade Systems Inc. is the industry pioneer and global leader in broker-neutral algorithmic trading platforms and execution management systems for equities, foreign exchange and listed derivatives. FlexTRADER, our flagship platform for algorithmic trading, is widely viewed as unique in the industry for its high performance and multi-asset capability. With offices in North America, Europe and Asia, FlexTrade has a worldwide client base spanning more than 120 buy- and sell-side firms, including many of the largest investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers, commodity trading advisors and institutional brokers. Clients include Bank of America, Bank of New York, Barclays Global Investors, Jefferies & Company, Inc., Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., LLC, UBS Global Asset Management and Wachovia. For more information, visit FlexTrade Systems at www.flextrade.com

Wachovia Announces ARS Settlement

Wachovia Corporation announced today that it has reached an agreement in principle for a global settlement with the Missouri Secretary of State (as the lead State in the North American Securities Administrators Association task force investigating the marketing and sale of auction rate securities, or ARS), the Attorney General for the State of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding ARS. Wachovia is pleased that the settlement produces a liquidity solution for its clients who purchased ARS at Wachovia.

"We understand that unprecedented market conditions have created difficulties for our clients, particularly those holding auction rate securities," said Robert K. Steel, president and chief executive officer of Wachovia Corporation. "We are pleased to announce a comprehensive solution for the liquidity needs of clients who purchased auction rate securities at Wachovia and to resolve this matter with federal and state regulators."

Daniel J. Ludeman, president and chief executive officer of Wachovia Securities, LLC, said, "Since this issue arose in February when auctions first started to fail, we have played a leading role in encouraging ARS issuers to restore liquidity to all of our clients, including those who have become part of our firm through the Oct. 1, 2007, merger of A.G. Edwards and Wachovia Securities. The dollar value of ARS held by Wachovia Securities clients has been cut by more than 50 percent through redemptions and successful auctions. Today's agreement in principle underscores our desire to ensure that clients who purchased ARS at Wachovia receive the liquidity they need."

Trading Jargon

BCG
Boston Consulting Group
Boston Consulting Grou
Global management consulting firm and advisor on business strategy. We partner with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their businesses. Our customized approach combines deep insight into the dynamics of companies and markets with close collaboration at all levels of the client organization.
Radar Logic
A real estate data and analytics company, calculates and publishes the Radar Logic Daily™ Prices. The prices track housing values for major U.S. metropolitan areas and are the basis of the Residential Property Index™ (RPX™), a market that enables real estate to be traded as a liquid asset, via property derivatives marketed by major financial institutions.
Trade Suite / CNS Interface
Application used to streamline trade processing and reduce risk to executing broker and the prime broker. Supplied by National Securities Clearing Corporation
NSCC
National Securities Clearing Corporation
TRM-Prime Broker (TRM-PB)
Management of the entire post-trade, pre-booking process in prime brokerage. Supplied by Traiana.
Beauchamp
A platform to manage complex portfolios and satisfy investor and regulatory requirements. Supplied by Linedata
T Zero Prime Brokerage
Prime brokers use T Zero to automate the give up process. Vendor is T Zero
Geneva
Application for client portfolio accounting, general ledger accounting, performance measurement and portfolio reporting. Geneva's tool vendor is Advent
Swaps Pricing Platform
Accessing security quotes generated by broker-dealers that prime brokers use for calculating client's net asset values (NAV). Tool vendor is SQX.

SuperDerivatives

SuperDerivatives® has been chosen by FIH Erhvervsbank A/S to strengthen and expand its capacity to trade interest rate derivatives.

FIH has deployed SuperDerivatives’ SD-IR platform, including its derivatives trade execution module, to all of its sales and trading desks. The SD-IR platforms will be integrated with the bank’s back office system using the SuperDerivatives SD-Connect application integration framework.

One of Denmark’s largest banks, FIH is a corporate and investment bank specializing in financial services to Danish corporates. It serves more than 4,500 medium and large sized enterprises in most sectors of the Danish business community. FIH is fully owned by Kaupthing Bank.

“As one of Denmark’s leading corporate and investment banks, we needed to increase our competitive edge by adding the capability to take open positions on interest rate options and trade more exotic instruments. After rigorous evaluation, we selected the SuperDerivatives SD-IR platform. It provides the expanded coverage and automation to better serve our customers, and has an interface that is easily mastered by our sales and trading desks,” said Erik Jensen, head of trading at FIH. “SuperDerivatives is also improving our sales desk productivity significantly by providing sales with modular tools to build and price customer-ready trade strategies, without needing to involve our traders. When the trade is ready for execution, SuperDerivatives’ online collaboration facility ensures accurate data capture between sales and traders and between sales and clients.”

SD-IR features real-time, accurate market prices, risk management and analytics for interest rate derivatives in all currencies where a derivatives marketplace exists. The online 24-hour system delivers market prices for a wide range of interest rate derivatives, structures and products including CMS-based products, a full suite of callable structures and target redemption structures. All structures include Greeks, buckets and charting tools. A full historical database of rates, volatilities and correlations enables retroactive pricing of portfolios. The system also includes a multi-asset blotter which can display trades in all asset classes and generate a variety of reports for corporate and hedge fund clients.

“In today’s highly competitive financial climate, banks in the Nordic region such as FIH are taking the lead in highlighting the global need to acquire tools that enable them to expand their business lines. SuperDerivatives’ combination of vanilla and exotic derivatives price discovery, award-winning market data, sophisticated analytics, and an intuitive user friendly interface gives our customers the power to more effectively design, execute and revaluate their derivatives strategies,” said Robert Emerson, product manager for interest rate derivatives, SuperDerivatives. “In the last few years, SuperDerivatives has strengthened its position to become the benchmark for derivatives in the Nordic financial sector, both on the sell side and buy side. Recently, Nordea, A.P. Moller Maersk Group, Carnegie, Landsbanki, and Glitnir have joined our roster of Nordic customers.”

Hanover Insurance Group

The Hanover Insurance Group, Inc. (NYSE:THG) , based in Worcester, Mass., is the holding company for a group of insurers that includes The Hanover Insurance Company, also based in Worcester; Citizens Insurance Company of America, headquartered in Howell, Mich., and their affiliates. The Hanover offers a wide range of property and casualty products and services to individuals, families and businesses through an extensive network of independent agents, and has been meeting its obligations to its agent partners and their customers for more than 150 years. Taken as a group, The Hanover ranks among the top 40 property and casualty insurers in the United States.

FBR Capital Markets

FBR Capital Markets Corporation (NASDAQ:FBCM) , a majority-owned subsidiary of Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group, Inc., provides investment banking*, merger and acquisition advisory services*, institutional brokerage*, research*, and asset management and private wealth services. FBR Capital Markets focuses capital and financial expertise on seven industry sectors: consumer, diversified industrials, energy & natural resources, financial institutions, insurance, real estate, and technology, media & telecom. FBR Capital Markets is headquartered in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area with offices in Arlington, VA; Boston; Dallas; Houston; Irvine; London, England; New York; San Francisco; and Sydney, Australia.

Finotec Group

Finotec Group, Inc., a pioneer in online forex trading, developed an internet-based software platform that allows clients to trade in the foreign exchange market. In addition to offering online forex trading, Finotec also offers online trading in indices, equities, commodities, futures and options in one integrated user-friendly system. The Finotec online platform offers real-time pricing and a sophisticated charting tool with over 50 easy-to-use technical indicators.