by market competence and local
market time zone,” he explains.
“Previously, a US equity order
would be automatically executed
in Dublin because the fund was lo-
cated there. Now US equity orders
can be executed by the US trading
desks in Boston. So you are trading
where you have your best market
expertise and the best broker rela-
tionships.”
Steps forward
Minieri says it has taken a while
to roll this concept out and get
traders comfortable with the idea.
Initially the tasks have been com-
pleted manually—orders generated
by a US fund on a European equity
market, for example, will still ap-
pear on the blotter of a US trader.
It is up to the US trader to assign
the trade to a European colleague.
However, from this year Pioneer
has started automatic routing on
a number of sample funds where
orders are automatically sent to the
hubs with the specific expertise to
carry out the trades. The traders
are connected via global chat and
Minieri can see how conversations
Instead of complaining of lack
of liquidity, I am a supporter of
a more proactive approach.
have changed since the early days.
He says that he has seen a tangible
evolution in trader relationships.
“To start off with people were
still sceptical or wise about what
they were delegating,” he says.
“These people were living in two
different continents who, in some
cases, had never met. Over the last
two years all these people have
met. I believe in the physical pres-
ence of being connected as well as
using social tools. The conversa-
tion is now more open in terms of
receiving suggestions or advice on
what is the best way of executing
an order.”
Last year the company took
another step forward by moving to
a multi-asset class trading model
with traders now handling more
than one asset class. The tighter
competition in financial markets
has led to increased sophistica-
tion of investment strategies and
greater numbers of assets that the
asset manager is putting money
into. But the multi-asset trading
model is particularly relevant with
MiFID II and the electronifica-
tion of markets where some asset
classes have become similar in the
way they are traded, says Minieri.
These days portfolio managers
have to look across multiple venues
which is undoubtedly increasing
the complexity of their task. Get-
ting to grips with the proliferation
of venues, assets and platforms is
not an easy ask.
“The number of venues to
execute trades has increased—you
have more than 30 different venues
in fixed income alone,” he says.
“Add all this information together
and you see it is impossible for
a trader to exploit everything.
To solve this enigma you have to
Winter 2016
TheTrade
27