Buy-side Perspectives Issue 14 Special edition | Page 9

A key strength of our offering is the
advanced customization capabilities
and the quality of Bloomberg's data.
Our clients can create and amend
trading rules within the tool instantly,
and as needed, by leveraging
Bloomberg’s vast data sets. We
believe this level of control addresses
the biggest challenge that the buy-
side has, which is understanding
what the automation tool does
and having sufficient flexibility to
configure it to their end objectives.
Our solution gives them control,
adaptability and access to the very
wide range of data points they need.
We also provide a semi-autonomous
mode within our solution, which
has proven very popular with our
clients, as it gives them the level of
comfort, and helps them through the
migration from manual through to a
fully automated process.
Centralised fixed income trading
desks still have a significant role
to contribute to the investment
process. Can information
technology enable better
interaction between the trading
desk and portfolio managers?
transactions to request of their
execution desk.
For example, a portfolio manager
can provide a trading desk with
an indication on the sector in
which to build a positon; but the
trader(s) may not be able to get
the price they are looking for.
Analytics can help the portfolio
manager determine whether
there is liquidity in the securities
they want to sell and adjust their
requested trades accordingly. So,
instead of looking for a perfect
solution for the portfolio which
has a low probability of execution,
the solution that is 95% optimal but
much more likely to be executed
may be pursued instead. Analytics
can give the buy-side indications of
appropriate transactions to request
their execution desks to conduct as
well as counterparty performance to
help with future trading decisions
Are you seeing a trend towards a
separation of buy-side trading roles
and skills between high touch and
automated low touch trading?
We don’t see a separation of buy-side
trading roles between low touch
and high touch. Low touch trades
will increasingly become more
automated, while high touch roles
will conduct the more nuanced and
bespoke trading activity with
oversight of the automated
The software needs to have access to
low touch trades. Those high
the numerous datasets a human trader
touch traders have a unique
would use to make decisions, and allow and valued skillset, which
them to map this data to highly flexible is important in ensuring
rules that respect the nuances of the
they understand the rules
product being traded – be it FI or FX.
and the management of
the technology they are
using to automate trades.
Therefore, their skillsets are not
When a portfolio manager is
lessening or being bifurcated, if
considering what instruments to
anything they are expanding in order
execute on, analytics can help give
for them to conduct their activity
them indications of appropriate
in this new environment. Similarly,
the skillsets of execution desks are
growing as the demands on their
capabilities increase when it comes
to their ability to analyse data, make
automation rules, and to understand
the technology that underpins the
automation capability.
Analytics can help the portfolio
manager determine whether
there is liquidity in the securities
they want to sell and adjust their
requested trades accordingly.
Traders who are responsible for
programming the automation
machinery with the goal of achieving
‘zero-touch’ order execution also
need to have confidence that
they are meeting their firm’s best
execution requirements, which is
something our tool provides. It is
also beneficial if the trader is savvy
with Transaction Cost Analysis
(TCA) technology, as we are actively
talking to a number of customers
who are exploring how the data in
these products could be used to fuel
automated pre-trade decisions such
as counterparty selection.
Absolutely. Firms are always looking
to increase the information flow
between portfolio managers and
execution traders, and technology
is certainly a tool at their disposal.
Global Summit 2019
www.buysideintel.com
Meet Ravi Sawhney and his
colleagues from Bloomberg
at the 7 th Alpha Trader Forum
Global Summit 2019 in London
on 6 th and 7 th February with Ravi
answering further questions
from the buy-side fixed income
and foreign exchange trading
audience on the 7 th February.
Visit Bloomberg on Stand 4 and
attend their speed dating session
in the City Suite.
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