April 2011

ALPARI LAUNCHES TRADING PLATFORM FOR INSTITUTION TRADING

www.alpari.com

The QuantumFX trading platform has been launched, Alpari announced. QuantumFX, which will provide corporations, hedge funds, banks, and high-frequency trading institutions with access to a diverse and deep liquidity pool, features anonymous trading via a central clearing counterparty model with multiple execution mechanisms. It also supports multiple order types and execution algorithms that help minimize market impact.

INTERACTIVE BROKERS ADDS ANDROID MOBILE TRADING SOLUTION, MORE

www.interactivebrokers.com

Interactive Brokers made some announcements about their products recently. First, the company announced that MobileTws for Android has been added to its collection of mobile trading solutions, providing electronic access to the user’s IB account so he or she can trade stocks, options, futures and forex, view real-time charts and market data, monitor trades, account balance and more from the Android device.

Next, they said that two new trading products were now available through their UK affiliate. IB Spot Gold gets access to the London bullion market, while IB UK Cfds (contracts for difference) are over the counter and lets you trade the difference between the current and future price of a share. These products are available to all non-US and non-Canadian customers. IB Spot Gold is available to US-based eligible contract participants as determined by your account application.

Finally, IB said that residents of India could now short stock (Nifty 50 stocks are available) on an intraday basis.

PROGRAM IS OFFERED FOR ASPIRING TRADERS

www.topsteptrader.com


www.pataktradingpartners.com

Patak Trading Partners and its new recruiting division, TopStepTrader, said they were making a trading career attainable for both recent college graduates and experienced traders with the introduction of a training and evaluation program. The TopstepTrader recruitment process utilizes a program to evaluate and monitor recruits’ trading performance in a real-time, live market simulation, then provides a risk-free way for traders to gain experience in the trading industry and test their strategies while being scouted by trading firms and equity backers. For those learning to trade, TopStepTrader offers one- and four-week training sessions.

GLOBAL X LAUNCHES NEW EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS

www.globalxfunds.com

Global X Funds said it was now offering, with Russell Indexes, the Global X Russell Emerging Markets Growth Etf (Emgx) and the Global X Russell Emerging Markets Value Etf (Emvx). These are the first exchange traded fund products that offer a way to play the emerging markets through growth and value styles, the company said.

OCE INTERACTIVE RELEASES COMPS COMPANION

www.markettopographer.com

Oce Interactive announced the release of Oce’s Comps Companion research platform, representing their latest innovation in relative valuation benchmarking of US equities. Comps Companion follows Oce’s release of its Market Topographer platform for researching, benchmarking, and comparing US equities. Comps Companion is driven by the same core technology as Oce’s Market Topographer platform.

CQG, NINJATRADER COLLABORATE ON GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY

www.cqg.com


www.ninjatrader.com

Cqg announced its collaboration with NinjaTrader to allow global connectivity between their systems. The collaboration gives traders using the NinjaTrader 7 platform the ability to connect to Cqg’s network exclusively for Amp Global Clearing. In addition to providing access to Cqg’s trading gateways and market data through this integration with NinjaTrader, Cqg provides pretrade risk capability, exchange compliance, and exchange reporting.

FXCM LAUNCHES FOREX EXECUTION CENTER

www.fxcm.com

The Fxcm Execution Center will be a central hub on the Fxcm websites that will provide forex traders with detailed information regarding forex execution practices with an agency execution model, the company said. Fxcm takes the best bid and ask prices streamed to them from multiple large financial institutions, adds a commission, and shows them to clients. Fxcm makes an identical amount of money in the form of pip markups, whether the customer makes or loses money on a trade. As a result, Fxcm earns consistent and transparent revenue per trade.

This is significantly different from brokers who operate a dealing desk execution model, where the revenue per trade is not as transparent, the company said. There are common practices that allow dealing desk firms to make more than just the markup attached to the prices streamed from large financial institutions. These practices include but are not limited to requoting customer trades, taking the opposing side of customer trades, and even preventing customers from trading or managing their positions during news events.

PFGBEST TYPHOON AGGREGATES FX LIQUIDITY FROM GLOBAL PROVIDERS

www.pfgbest.com

PfgBest, a global financial services and technology firm, and Equinix, Inc., a provider of global data center services, announced that PfgBest had selected Equinix to host its Typhoon direct market access solution for foreign exchange trading. PfgBest is relocating its proprietary liquidity aggregation and order routing system to Equinix’s New York International Business Exchange to improve order routing performance and reduce latencies.

Typhoon is a strict, no-dealing-desk environment, which ensures client orders are matched to the best available prices. Typhoon is a dynamic liquidity provisioning solution that can be tailored to meet the trading demands of all client types and can be accessed through all of the PfgBest electronic trading applications, including both proprietary platforms and direct Api products. PfgBest created Typhoon as part of a strategy to create and own technologies so clients are never at the mercy of vendors or third-party providers. PfgBest has also taken the development of Typhoon and applied it to precious metals dealers for its affiliate, Pfg Precious Metals, Inc.

COMMODITY FUTURES INVESTING EVENTS LAUNCHED

commodityfuturesinvesting.com

Commodity Futures Investing Community (Cfic) announced the launch of a global series of commodity futures investing events. This series is focused on educating and empowering investors with knowledge and resources to take advantage of opportunities in the global commodity futures and options markets. The events are planned for North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, with each event featuring a conference, seminars, and an exhibition. The first event will take place March 28–30, 2011, in Melbourne, FL.