04:58 PM
ELECTRONIC-TRADING NEWSFLASHES
Inter-American Development Bank's (IADB) Global Capital Markets Group went live with a front-to-back office system from Summit Systems, Inc. The new system is supporting fixed-income including mortgage-backed securities and asset-backed securities. Comprehensive functionality covers trading, pricing, reporting and back-office transaction processing that includes accounting and settlement processing. IADB will be able to consolidate its system environment and realize efficiencies by retiring outdated legacy products.
Schwab Capital Markets L.P. (SCM) began providing institutional clients with a weekly research report titled, "In Our View," compiling market views and insights from Schwab's top strategists and analysts. The piece offers a diverse perspective on market trends, technical analysis and quantitative buy/sell recommendations.
The firm's 600 institutional clients will have access to research and commentary from Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist; Greg Valliere, chief political strategist and John Mendelson, market analyst. In a statement, Jim Leonard, senior vice president and head of research at SCM, says that institutional clients "have come to rely on us for balanced research distinguished by its freedom from traditional equities investment banking conflicts," such as participating in equity underwriting.
David Shpilberg was appointed to the Board of Directors of TransactTools, a New York provider of technology services and global electronic-trading connectivity. Shpilberg is a director of Bain & Company and head of Bain's Information Technology Practice worldwide.
He has previously served as global CIO of Goldman Sachs' Equity and Asset Management divisions and COO of Knight Trading Group. Shpilberg's extensive work on risk management, statistical decisions theory and artificial intelligence has been widely published and earned numerous academic awards.
NeoNet, an international agency brokerage specializing in electronic equity-execution services for institutional investors, signed a connectivity contract with Radianz. Under the contract, NeoNet will use Radianz's market infrastructure and global extranet (RadianzNet) and the Financial Information Exchange protocol with clients in the United States and Europe. NeoNet offers equity execution services on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the American Stock Exchange, and on London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen and Olso stock exchanges.
Sonic Financial Technology, a direct-access firm serving both the buy and sell sides, awarded a managed services contract to Savvis Communications. Under the contract, SonicStorm, Sonic FT's trading platform, can be accessed via Savvis' Intelligent IP Network. This will enable customers to trade via a single, secure real-time connection to more than 15 sources of liquidity. This includes all eight electronic communications networks, Nasdaq and multiple listed-equity destinations.