Under new MIFID II proposals the responsibilities bestowed on an individual executing trader will be under increased internal and external scrutiny. For their part, they will now be expected to be a source of alpha and value-add in the investment process whilst also providing direct accountability for the best execution of every order on the firms pad under their supervision.

In the third blog of our Preparing for MIFID II series, we showcase how OTAS’ intelligent In-Trade technology is enabling traders to become more efficient through the life of a trade, by being active by exception. This means using advanced artificial intelligence techniques to monitor idiosyncrasies in live stock behaviour and informing traders so that they are able to reassess and reselect the best strategy for their orders in reaction to changes in real-time market information. Put simply, traders can now take real ownership of their trade blotter, optimizing their flow to the orders where they can have most impact and by providing transparent, recordable visual evidence for the basis of their decision making.

Our Microstructure charts use quantitative modelling to predict the expected daily forecasts for a range of stock trading metrics including price return(absolute and vs basket,) volumes, liquidity and spread. If during the course of an order any of these live stock conditions trade in extreme of these forecasts(through impact caused by the trader or general market) it is considered a potentially actionable signal for the trader and a visual Alert is fired. Further important price sensitive information is also relayed via the Alerts including outsized Dark/OTC volume, live company Insider transactions and Peer Event reporting.
Extensive market intelligence tools including total volume and closing auction forecasts, venue breakdown analysis(Dark & Lit), V.A.P and latest News are also provided within the Microstructure stack.

Key Benefits of Microstructure & Alerts:

• Systematically monitor trade blotters of any size, using an exception based approach.
• Course correction of orders in response to realtime Alerts
• Alert metric(s) selectable by client preference including trigger threshold/sensitivity.
• Microstructure and Alerts recorded to provide visualization evidence of traders decision process.
• Extensive volume analysis across Lit & Dark markets

Order Blotter Alerts sample                                                Alerts recorded through Order life cycle

Additionally, our In-Trade Performance function allows traders to monitor live order performance against specific client execution instructions or a range of strategy benchmarks. It also allows them to perform real-time analysis of the direct impact of their trading decisions on execution price(slippage) and participation rate.

A large majority of our EMS partners now have OTAS In-Trade components directly embedded into their trading platforms, meaning their clients are already benefiting from fully integrated, optimizable execution processes. These are just three of a whole suite of bespoke real-time trading applications we have created to help Global Trading desks provide a systematic approach and facilitate ‘sufficient steps’ under the guidelines and framework of MIFID II.

Contact us now to explore the current apps available within your EMS and how we can assist your current execution policy or technology mandate at otassales@otastech.com

***OTAS has been nominated for the Intelligent Trading Technology Awards 2017 under the Best Trading Analytics Platform category. Please vote for us using the following link – http://resource.datamanagementreview.com/intelligent-trading-technology-awards-2017-survey . Voting is open through April 21, 2017. Winners will be announced at the Intelligent Trading Summit on June 8.***

Under MIFID2, executing traders will be accountable for every aspect of a client order and for ensuring that a firm’s best execution policies are implemented. Ultimately, this means demonstrating the ability to record a consistent, compliance-approved process of why each decision was made.
OTAS helps traders achieve this via a simple 2-step process using the Trade Schedule and Intraday Lingo applications. Traders can copy, store and send the analysis from both apps to satisfy the desk, compliance and clients.

In our previous Function of the Week, we demonstrated how traders can optimize an entire order pad and distribute high and low touch orders based on exceptional trading characteristics and workflow scenarios. This week we concentrate on the individual orders that comprise an order pad, focusing on the initial stage of the execution process,  Strategy selection and Implementation.

The Trade Schedule component offers traders proprietary pre-trade order analysis using quantitative forecasts of stock risk(volatility), impact cost and total expected trade costs for their order size across a range of benchmark strategies. This includes our own Optimal schedule and provides justifiable decision making evidence for strategy selection and best execution processes. Each order schedule can be optionally tailored to an individual clients needs by presenting revised cost calculations based on the clients level of risk aversion.

Once a strategy is selected and implemented it is then dynamically monitored in real-time, continually calculating suggested participation rates to account for changing market conditions and execution fill data throughout the life of the trade.

Key Benefits of OTAS Trade Schedule:

• Demonstrating ‘best possible results’ on an on-going, consistent, systematic basis.
• Variable cost output forecasts based on individual client risk appetite/trading style.
• Justification of pricing decisions for OTC risk trades.
• Dynamic in-trade monitoring of schedule suitability(decision support for adjusting participation)
• Multi stage analysis of order execution process

Example: Schedule forecasts to Buy 200k Siemens

A large majority of our EMS partners now have the OTAS Schedule component along with risk, impact and total cost forecast columns directly embedded into their trading platforms, meaning their clients are already benefiting from fully integrated, optimizable execution processes.

Example : Blotter view optimized by ‘riskiest’ orders

Trade Schedule analysis is just one of a suite of bespoke real-time trading applications we have created to help Global Trading desks provide a systematic approach and facilitate ‘sufficient steps’ under the guidelines and framework of MIFID II.

Contact us now to explore the current apps available within your EMS and how we can assist your current execution policy or technology mandate at otassales@otastech.com

The OTAS Intraday Screener app offers a fully configurable heatmap tool providing traders ‘at a glance‘ direction of where outliers sit on the pad, allowing them to immediately focus their attention on where it is most needed.
Embedded within a trading EMS it provides a recognizable systematic approach to order pad optimization, where each scenario analysis a trader wishes to perform is monitored in real-time, highlighting actionable opportunities and exceptions from the norm.

Each axis and chart annotation can be user-configured to suit distinct trading workflows, such as…..

Irregular Price & Volume Order Optimization

Screen an order pad for ‘action’ stocks where asymmetric behaviour in daily price performance and traded volume presents exception outliers for manual trader intervention.

• Manage ‘high touch’ flow broken out by idiosyncratic daily share price performance from the open(x-axis)
• Combine with disproportionate volume(y-axis) conditions to focus on highly liquid or harder to trade orders, vis-á-vis passive/aggressive strategy decision
• Example Screenshot: Standard Life, Informa & St James Place all under-performing on well above average volume with WPP significantly outperforming.

In-Trade Liquidity Screening:

Optimise High Touch vs Low Touch flow, spread crossing and liquidity opportunities

• Minute by minute lit market liquidity profiling relative to historic normalised ranges(x-axis.) Identify orders with above average liquidity and live trading opportunities Example: Shire, Diageo & Worldpay or conversely adjust to low liquidity trading indicators.
• Current indicative price spread levels(y-axis) relative to normal. Exceptionally wide spread = execution cost impact from spread crossing, plus low liquidity  Example: Convatec.

Adjusting to Price Momentum changes:

Identify idiosyncratic returns from normal expected ranges.
Actively manage flow and adjust aggression based on rolling absolute and basket relative returns.

• Highlight orders with abnormal positive or negative price behaviour from the market open(y-axis) and combine with short term momentum compared to peers(x-axis.) Also assess traded volume for trend analysis and intraday mean reversion potential.
• Examples: Sainsburys – Extreme basket relative under-performance over last hour on lower than normal volume = potential Mean Reversion 
• Capita – Significantly low absolute return from open, excessively high trade volume, negative one hour basket relative return = probable Trend Continuation 
• Schroders & Merlin– Unusually low absolute return from open, excessively high trade volume, strong positive one hour relative performance = potential Trend Reversal or Continuation

Intraday Screener is just one of a suite of bespoke real-time trading applications we have created to help Global Trading desks provide a systematic approach and facilitate ‘sufficient steps’ under the guidlines and framework of MIFID II.

Contact us now to explore the current apps available within your EMS and how we can help your current technology mandate at otassales@otastech.com