[ A PA C
A L G O R I T H M I C
T R A D I N G
S U R V E Y ]
Taking centre stage
The trend of improving performance for APAC algorithmic trading shows
no sign of slowing down according to this year’s survey.
A
s The TRADE’s annu-
al Asia-Pacific (APAC)
algorithmic trading survey
has shown in recent years, the
region has been gaining ground on
Europe and North America to the
point where distinct differences
are clearly noticeable among the
results. While Europe, and to some
extent North America, have grap-
pled with the regulatory burden
of MiFID II, the APAC region has
largely – although not entirely –
escaped these burdens and focused
on furthering quality instead.
This trend of continuous levels
of improvement being displayed
in Asian algorithmic trading is
evident in Figure 1, which shows
the scores provided by this year’s
responses over the past five years
across 12 areas of algorithm
functionality. Respondents to this
year’s survey scored algo providers
higher than any of the previous five
years across ever category, with an
overall survey-wide average of 5.81.
This compares favourably to the
results of The TRADE’s global algo
trading surveys conducted earlier
this year, which scored an average
of 5.57 although respondents were
Figure 1: Rating of algorithm performance
2018 2017 2016 2015 2014
Improving trader productivity 5.98 5.64 5.60 5.26 5.61
Reducing market impact 5.82 5.56 5.40 5.22 5.51
Execution consistency 5.87 5.57 5.48 5.26 5.53
Cost 5.69 5.58 5.15 5.18 5.56
Speed 5.87 5.63 5.19 5.26 5.64
Anonymity 5.84 5.68 5.62 5.37 5.58
Price improvement 5.75 5.40 5.41 4.99 5.36
Customisation capabilities 5.70 5.13 5.17 5.23 5.29
Ease of use 5.98 5.61 5.50 5.26 5.69
Internal crossing 5.50 5.25 5.05 4.97 5.41
Execution consulting 5.88 5.58 5.70 5.25 5.60
Customer support 5.80 5.65 5.57 5.41 5.72
90 // TheTrade // Winter 2018
more likely to be critical due to the
pressures of MiFID II in Europe
and, to some extent North America
than in APAC.
While none of the functional-
ities reviewed in this year’s survey
scored as high as 6.00 – both the
improving trader productivity and
ease of use categories were closest
to doing so, each being scored 5.98
by respondents – while none of the
categories scored lower than 5.50.
The largest year-on-year score
increases came in the aforemen-
tioned categories, as well as for
customisation capabilities which
increased from 5.13 last year to
5.70 this year. Clearly the efforts
being made by algo providers to
allow users to modify and tailor
their products to fit particular
trading strategies, particularly
relevant during times of regulatory
and geopolitical upheaval. There
were incremental improvements
in the cost, customer support and
anonymity categories, although not
enough to cause a serious shift in
the overall scores for these func-
tionalities.
Client support and execution
consulting scored highly and in-
line with the survey average, as did
the reducing market impact, execu-
tion consistency and speed catego-
ries. While there were no specific
areas of stand-out performance in
this year’s survey results, it appears
that APAC respondents are gener-