Reality Online Signs on With Javelin

Reality Online has signed an agreement to integrate Javelin Technologies' FIX engine into its suite of electronic trading solutions, Reuters Electronic Broker.

Reality Online, a Reuters subsidiary, has signed an agreement to integrate Javelin Technologies' FIX engine into its suite of electronic trading solutions, Reuters Electronic Broker. Reality is planning to connect its Electronic Broker clients to Reuters InterTrade Direct, a buy- and sell-side cross-border, order routing system. With the inclusion of Coppelia, Javelin's FIX engine, investors relying on Electronic Broker will be able to route orders seamlessly to InterTrade Direct's roughly 500,000 buy- and sell-side users.

"Today, in the U.S., the market has been predominantly domestic, with Schwab and E*Trade customers buying domestic equities," explains William Gates, vice president of securities transactions, InterTrade Direct. "But, we're seeing more and more demand for cross-border executions, and that's our primary market. We've tried to leverage the strength of Reality Online and InterTrade, taking Reality Online's remarkable presence on the brokerage side-13 of the top 20 e-brokers use it-with the enormous presence that InterTrade Direct has around the world."

InterTrade Direct boasts about 250 international buy- and sell-side institutions on its network.

Highlighting the flexibility found in Javelin's Coppelia, John Tucker, senior vice president of marketing for Reality Online, says that there are many flavors of the FIX protocol, but Javelin's appears to be the most dominantly used in the industry.

"Although it's an industry standard, it's not quite completely standard," Tucker explains. "The decision was made by our head of development who looked at all the available FIX implementations out there, and he felt that the Javelin engine was the most consistent with our requirements and those of the industry."

Gates couldn't stress enough the importance of hooking up Reality Online's domestic customer base with that of InterTrade Direct's international institutions. "John's customers are ultimately looking to do overseas executions, to route executions overseas in any market," Gates delineates. "Because of the inclusion of Javelin's FIX engine and the connection with InterTrade Direct, Reality Online is no longer a domestic product."

Tucker says that FIX will also play an important role in hooking up users of Electronic Broker with ECNs for after-hours trading.