Direct Edge Upgrades to Exegy's Exchange Connect

Direct Edge to use Exegy's Exchange Connect appliance to accelerate its view of away markets and speed up its routing solution.

In a move to speed up its routing solution for customers, Direct Edge, the third largest U.S. stock market, said it would use Exegy's Exchange Connect appliance to give customers the fastest possible hardware accelerated view of all away stock market venues.

Exegy's Exchange Connect is a variant of the ultra-low latency Exegy Ticker plant, typically used by high frequency trading firms to get the fastest look at the electronic stock market.

"This is all about our commitment to speed and to our customers, Customers who send orders to Direct Edge want the best price as fast as possible," comments Steven Bonanno, CTO at Direct Edge in the release. "This means we must focus not only on being the fastest we can be through our own order matching engine, but also providing the best possible routing solution for customers," continued Bonanno.

According Bonanno, the Exegy Exchange Connect appliance feeds the Direct Edge smart order router with prices, constantly providing the best bids and offers from all venues in the lowest possible time frame. This is critical in today's market, where microseconds matter," stated the CTO.

Direct Edge is making the upgrade as it moves into the Equinix NY4 facility in Secaucus, New Jersey. With 340,000 square feet, the carrier-neutral Equinix facility is also a major data distribution center for the new CBOE C2 platform, ICE, ISE and BOX.

In a statement, Jim O'Donnell, chairman and CEO of Exegy, the St. Louis-based high-performance market-data appliance company, observed, "It makes perfect sense for an exchange focused on extreme low latency to take advantage of the same technology" that's used by traders at large banks and hedge funds, noting that "it gives them the fastest look at financial markets."

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio