Multi-Asset Trading Technology
Buy Side Bolsters Middle Office for Cross-Asset Trading | Goldman Builds Toward Asset Class Convergence
Goldman Builds Toward Asset Class Convergence
April 27, 2009
Over the last few years, buy-side firms have increasingly turned to multi-asset-class trading systems to save money and optimize their workflow. But such systems have become even more of a priority as firms' IT dollars have grown scarce, according to Rishi Nangalia, managing director and global head of business development at Goldman Sachs Electronic Trading.
Goldman earlier this month rolled out a new version of its execution management system, RediPlus, which lets buy-side customers trade equities, options, futures, foreign exchange and synthetic instruments and provides access to the bulge-bracket firm's algorithmic strategies in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.
The upgraded RediPlus adds three options algorithms--strike, pegging and volatility limit--to the four available strategies and allows traders to automatically execute equity hedges when they fill options orders. Improvements were also made to its portfolio trading functionality and trade data sorting, and the platform now notifies users when an upgrade is available.
"We have a pretty diverse set of clients whose constant feedback on our platform and their usage of it drives some of the development," says Nangalia. The next release, due in August, will be geared heavily toward algorithmic enhancements across options, equities and futures, adds Mike Rude, VP and head of electronic trading and global listed derivatives product development for Goldman Sachs Electronic Trading.
Rude, a former consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers who has worked at Goldman since 2004, and Nangalia, who joined Goldman in 2001 after founding e-trading firm Ivest, recently sat down with Securities Industry News to talk about Goldman's trading technology offerings and the future of multi-asset-class systems.
How are current market conditions affecting firms' desire to invest in new multi-asset trading platforms?
Nangalia: We think this is the right time. Across the Street people are looking to cut costs. They are a lot more thoughtful about spending money and expense management, given the environment. If you have multiple platforms that are doing the same functions for different asset classes in different regions, the cost is so much higher. But if you have a single platform that has all of this, and you can mitigate the cost across all of these businesses on the same platform, it makes a lot of sense both for the people providing these platforms--like us--as well as the buy side.
How do you differentiate your platform?
Rude: That's ultimately how Rishi and I spend the vast majority of our time-determining how we differentiate our business, what's going to make ours a better solution. Current differentiators include our value-added execution capabilities such as Sigma X, smart routing, algorithms, leveraging the Goldman Sachs franchise.
What led to the improvements in the new version of RediPlus?
Rude: Many of the drivers are really the ideas and needs that come out of our customer base. The vast majority of the direction we're getting is to continue our global expansion, adding to the markets on our platform, continuing to expand upon the asset classes on our platform, and enhancing the more strategic aspects of our platform, such as Sigma X, to continue to expand our dark pool functionality.
How do you address differing regional and asset-class demands?
