JP Morgan Selects Actant's Aqtor Front End for its ISE Market Makers

JPMorgan, the investment-banking arm of JPMorgan Chase, has rolled out Actant's Aqtor front-end workstation software in support of equity derivatives traders who make markets on the International Securities Exchange -- the all-electronic U.S. options market. Aqtor, an electronic-access system that also provides a gateway to the trading engines of Eurex, Liffe, Euronext and the London Stock Exchange, is now providing order entry and auto quoting capabilities to JPMorgan's ISE market makers.

Kevin Kenety, Actant's chief executive officer, says that JPMorgan recently deployed a customized version of Aqtor in place of its incumbent, ISE-supplied front end. While declining to specify the date Aqtor went live at the investment bank, Kenety says that JPMorgan needed an all-in-one front end that would allow its market makers to adhere to the "stringent rules" of the ISE. "The ISE places the most demands on its market makers, in terms of making tight spreads, for size, (within) fixed periods of time. And the tighter the obligations of market makers, the more they rely on technology," he says.

In addition to order entry and auto quoting, JPMorgan's ISE market makers also can use Aqtor to perform real-time theoretical valuations and volatility modeling. "We have three internal ways of modeling volatility, and then, on top of that, another language, so you can write programs to model volatility inside (our) application," says Kenety.

Currently, JPMorgan has no plans to use Aqtor to tap into any other exchange destinations, such as Liffe or Euronext. But Kenety says that Actant hopes that JPMorgan will expand its use of the front end after its market makers experience Aqtor's ISE functionality.

Kenety also says through Actant's so-called Aqtor DOM application programming interface, JPMorgan can integrate the latest version of Aqtor into its existing proprietary systems. JPMorgan officials did not return calls seeking comment by press time.