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In a move to enter the liquidity aggregating space, Bloomberg launched its Bloomberg Execution Management System (EMS), a multi-broker global equity execution platform. The new platform, which is available on every Bloomberg terminal, combines data, advanced trading-blotter analytics and extensive order routing options to help users seek better executions on their equity orders.

The Bloomberg EMS can route electronic orders to more than 960 brokers through the firm’s Global Equity Order Routing network, which is accessible through EET on the Bloomberg terminal. Orders can also be placed via Bloomberg EMS to broker-dealer program and block trading desks, as well as to leading broker-dealer algorithmic execution strategy trading destinations accessible on the Bloomberg terminal. Firms can also integrate EMS with their proprietary and third party order management systems (OMS).

"With Bloomberg EMS, users can access advanced execution features on a single platform and save on additional data and network costs," claims Don Carey, a Bloomberg spokesperson.

The platform lets traders create custom trade blotters and also provides value-added real-time pre-, working and post-trade analytical tools including IOIs, news, and custom benchmark measures. Bloomberg says users can choose from a library of benchmarks such as available volume-weighted average price and volume measures, and can also create their own custom calculations in spreadsheet mode. The EMS integrates sophisticated real-time sorting and filtering options that let traders identify orders that need special handling versus the selected benchmark, or executions that deviate from expectations.

Global investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) has agreed to add its non-member trading facilities to Fidessa’s global connectivity network. One element of CSFB’s Fidessa offering is the investment bank’s Advanced Execution Services (AES) algorithmic trading system that uses historical and real-time data to assess trading conditions.

Under the terms of the agreement, CSFB joins Fidessa’s multi-broker order routing network as a destination that offers execution services for their clients in equity markets around the world.

AES enables the automation of a large proportion of order flow, which allows traders to focus on more complicated trades. Clients can access AES electronically with full trading anonymity. AES provides access to algorithmic trading strategies that will allow Fidessa clients to achieve goals such as minimising market impact or tracking defined benchmarks.

CSFB will also offer support for managed orders to be worked by the broker in the market for clients, and direct market access (DMA) trading.

Citigroup’s corporate and investment banking group, Merrill Lynch, and UBS Investment Bank are the first sell-side brokers to use the new algorithmic messaging capabilities of Thomson AutEx and can accept quantitative execution algorithms from their buy side clients.

The institutions completed certification in December, says Jim Campbell, head of business development for AutEx. "They came on and certified and now we’re talking to a number of interested institutions and they’re getting ready to set up the tests," says Campbell.

In addition to talking to financial institutions, Thom son Financial is expected to go through the certification process with third-party vendors of trading solutions. Each algorithm has different parameters that buy-side traders can adjust in order to determine how the trading strategy will behave.

The AutEx network not only supports outbound routing of algorithmic trades from the buy-side, but will also allow the sell-side to communicate progress of those trades by sending back execution reports to clients.

Portware has implemented access to Hotspot FXi, a foreign exchange (FX) marketplace, via its trade and execution management system Portware Professional. The integration lets Portware users directly place FX orders into the Hotspot FXi marketplace via the user interface and incorporate FX trades into automated trading strategies executed across the equities, futures, and options markets.

Portware and Hotspot FXi’s systems are linked through a FIX gateway, providing users with immediate FX trading capability and streaming market data supplied by Hotspot FXi’s network of bank market makers and institutional customers.

Users can trade FX from a multi-asset platform, and can also execute real- time automated strategies incorporating other asset classes, explains Eric Goldberg, CEO of Portware. "The ability to apply a strategy across a full portfolio provides our clients with an unprecedented level of control and a virtually limitless pool of trading opportunities," he says.

Institutional brokerage and direct market access (DMA) technology firm Edgetrade has released a newly developed suite of agency algorithms. The service has been integrated into the firm’s own trading system. When Edgetrade’s clients use its agency algorithms to work their orders, they are no longer subject to the conflicts of interest that can arise when trading through firms involved in proprietary trading or internalization of order flow, says the firm’s chief quantitative strategist Frank Brown, who was the key developer of the new service. "Our clients’ orders do not compete with positions taken on a block desk or in market-making operations," he says.

Merrill Lynch’s ML X-ACT algorithmic and computer-based equity trading service now can access via LatentZero’s Minerva trading and order management system (OMS). Using the benchmark-driven algorithmic trading platform, researchers and traders continuously re-calibrate the strategies included based on real-time market data, execution costs and benchmark-relative performance. The system is part of Merrill Lynch’s suite of premier execution services, including capital commitment and block trading, portfolio trading and analytics and direct market access.

The electronic trading services group at Banc of America Securities (BAS) is collaborating with information provider Reuters. Users of Reuters Station and Reuters 3000 Xtra will be able to make use of seamless integration to the group’s algorithmic trading strategies and Premier Block Trading platform.

The recent Reuter’s offering is the latest part of BAS’ ongoing Electronic Trading Alliance, a framework in which BAS collaborates with leading technology vendors and trading venues to provide seamless solutions for institutional traders.

Electronic trading services’ product integration with Reuters Station will let users execute sophisticated algorithmic trading strategies anonymously and in a fully electronic manner, says Rob Flatley, managing director of the electronic trading services group at the bank.

Tom Gros, executive vice president and global head of equities at Reuters, says the agreement reflects Reuters’ commitment to providing its desktop users with the most respected trade connectivity options available.