overlaid on the primary markets and
incoming client orders and hedging
trades. I feel such tools are likely to
be extended to the buy-side over
time to provide clients with a better
understanding of algo behaviour.
The machine and trader partnership
will continue to expand. Trader tools
will become easier to use with the
additional help from machine learning
and artificial intelligence. Machine
learning and artificial intelligence will
play an ever-increasing role not only for
quant driven strategies, but also asset
management firms as well as in our
daily lives going forward.
Do you have any recommendations of
how TCA or visualisation technologies
can be used to optimise execution?
We do our own internal TCA. Since
partnering with Quod Financial, we
have begun exploring data visualisation
technologies further. One example is
Elastic’s Kibana software. Kibana makes
manipulating the data a lot easier than
writing queries and can be done as soon
as the order has been completed. We
also use various internally developed
algo playback GUIs which we can use
post-trade.
Benchmarking in different ways gives us
more insight on a number of data points
such as:
• Arrival, Cost to execute immediately,
Interval VWAP, percentage of spread
• By time of day, days to expiry
• Incremental value of adding
additional Liquidity Providers (LPs)
How did you get into the trading role
at Aspect Capital?
I started my career in the late 90’s at
ED and F Man, better known as Man
Group these days. I worked my way
around Man on various trading floors
and broking desks. After completing
a few trading exams and the SFA
Registered Representative exam
(as it was known then) I joined one
of the Financial Futures executing
broking desks within Man. The busy
desk executed Futures and Options
on behalf of Hedge Funds, Banks and
Pension Funds and provided trade
ideas. From there I moved to the
systematic hedge fund within Man,
known as AHL, where I spent most of
my time on the FX and FI execution
desk. After leaving Man, I joined ICAP
for a brief period and from there I
made the transition to Aspect Capital
where I have been working on the
execution desk for the past 6 years.
Who is Alex Clark outside of your
senior buy-side trading role?
This is a little bit cliché but the bulk of
my time outside of the trading role is
spent with my family. My wife and I are
kept very busy at weekends ferrying
our two boys to football matches,
athletic clubs and so forth. I enjoy all
sports and try to stay in shape in order
to keep up with my two very active
boys! I was an avid squash player pre-
children, playing in various leagues
and for various clubs, but I just play
recreationally these days about 2/3
times a week. I’ll dust off the golf clubs
every now and then and when the
boys get a little bit more independent,
I’ll try and get my handicap down to
the level it was pre-children. I enjoy
sports science books and how data
and analytics has improved sporting
achievements over time, and who
doesn’t love the odd boxset binge
these days?
How do you see the counterparty
landscape evolving?
One word, consolidation. We have seen
consolidation across pretty much all
industries. I believe that investment
firms will be working more closely
with their key partners going forward
rather than having 20 LPs and that the
number of Electronic Communication
Networks (ECNs) will diminish. You can
see the consolidation in the FX rankings
and recent news articles about ECNs/
platforms. I feel this theme will continue.
Winter/Spring 2020
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