ELX Gears up for Live Futures Trading in June

ELX Electronic Liquidity Exchange (ELX), an alternative to established futures markets, plans to conduct comprehensive testing of its high-speed electronic system in May. Live futures trading in Treasury securities scheduled to begin in June, pending regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

“ELX is poised in the next few months to deliver a high-velocity cost effective electronic platform with a modern rule set that will benefit all market participants,” stated Neal Wolkoff, CEO of ELX, who delivered these remarks at the opening of the Futures Industry Conference in Boca Raton, Florida. “This combination offers a highly competitive alternative for today’s technology-empowered market participants seeking to access a broad range of exchanges and pools of liquidity,” Wolkoff further added in a release summarizing his comments at the futures conference.

Wolkoff indicated the CFTC is likely to complete its review of ELX’s Designated Contract Market application in early spring. Testing and mock trading sessions are scheduled for May, paving the way for live trading in quarterly Treasury futures contracts to begin in June, according to Wolkoff in the release.

ELX is built on BGC Partners’ eSpeed electronic trading platform, long in use by leading financial institutions for trading multiple assets, including U.S. Treasury cash markets and European government bonds. Current users of the eSpeed application will have direct access to futures trading on ELX, said the company’s release. ELX is working with a broad range of institutions and technology providers to prepare for live trading, added Wolkoff in the release.

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