Electronic Trading Newsflashes

Harborside+ reports daily liquidity soared from to $3 billion in 2003; CBOT launches eFills application with Future Dynamics; Newgate picks Indata for trade-order management; NYSE to expand automatic trading via Direct+.

Harborside+'s liquidity for matching block trades on a daily basis surged from approximately $1 billion to $3 billion during 2003, according to the institutional block-trading service. The company also reports that revenues grew 315 percent last year.

Harborside+ combines technology and human intervention to manage the liquidity submitted by buy and sell-side institutional traders in the form of confidential indications-of-interest.

"Our business model for trading large blocks continues to receive validation, as more traders realize the singularity and depth of liquidity we have to offer," states Harborside+ President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Hall in a release.

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The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) successfully launched eFills persistent fills application, to provide market users with real-time access to fill data through a secure Web portal. Developed by Future Dynamics (FD), the application is designed to enhance CBOT's new electronic-trading platform, LIFFE Connect. It was released to clients on January 2 with the official launch of CBOT's electronic-trading platform.

eFills manages fills, independently of a firm's trading front-end, serving as a contingency system in the event of a lapse in exchange connectivity.

FD built eFills through the integration of two FD products: Viewpoint, an order-matching and allocation engine, and Load&Go, a client Web portal. Both field-tested components were integrated with the eCBOT's trade-handling system to produce a robust fill-management application, processing over 400,000 trades daily.

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Newgate LLP, a privately held investment adviser based in Greenwich, Conn., selected the Indata I.M.S. for Windows system as its trade-order-management system. In the news release, Newgate's Founding Partner Sonia Rosenbaum, PhD., cites Indata's flexibility and greater operational efficiency "combined with robust, easy-to-use functionality on the trade-order-management side for handling international securities" as a deciding factor. The firm focuses on emerging markets equity and total-return income portfolio management.

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The New York Stock Exchange's (NYSE) Board of Directors approved a plan to expand access to automatic trading. In an effort to offer speed and execution certainty, the exchange will make its NYSE Direct+ automatic-execution service, available to a wider range of investors, states NYSE Chief Executive Officer John Thain.

Specifically, the NYSE will eliminate two of the restrictions in the current rules -- the 30-second limitation for consecutive orders and the 1,099-share size limit for orders. It will allow the addition of market orders to those eligible to trade via NYSE Direct+. Currently only limit orders are eligible.

The NYSE filed the proposed rule changes with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Following their approval, the changes would be implemented in phases so that the NYSE and order-routing vendors can make necessary technology changes for each step. This way, the NYSE can evaluate the changes at each stage and make any changes that are appropriate.