[ N E W S
A
s automation continues to
permeate buy-side technol-
ogy and trading operations,
the use of automated bots within
trading technology workflows is
also beginning to show signs of
value for asset managers.
JP Morgan Asset Management
(JPMAM) developed and rolled out
its own bot, referred to internally
as BETSI (Bot for Equity Trading
Symphony Integration), earlier
this year to automate and optimise
certain trading desks workflow
process, such as notifications,
indications of interest for block
liquidity and enhancing request for
quotes (RFQ).
Speaking to The TRADE, JP-
MAM’s European head of equity
trading, Neil Joseph, said that the
launch of BETSI – believed to be
the first of its kind among buy-side
asset managers – is part of the
firm’s rolling three-year strategic
plan to accelerate its equity trading
technology evolution.
The bot was built through close
collaboration between JP Morgan’s
EMEA equity trading desk and
its technology team, “working as
one team with that common goal
to improve operational efficiency
by automating the routine so as to
enable traders just to focus on more
complex order flows and contin-
ue to reduce execution costs and
integrate more with the investment
process,” Joseph explained.
The three key areas of opera-
tional functionality the BETSI bot
offers are an intelligent notifica-
tion service, block indications of
interest, and RFQ enhancements,
all of which align with the guiding
principles for JPMAM’s equity
trading desk.
The BETSI News function
generates alerts for the systematic
distribution of stock, market or
liquidity news to portfolio manag-
R E V I E W ]
"We request a risk price in a basket of stocks and
BETSI will validate the bid in a broker-specific
room, and they then flow directly into Spectrum
Trading, responding to the broker as well."
NEIL JOSEPH, JP MORGAN ASSET MANAGEMENT
ers, whereby traders instruct the
bot to notify portfolio managers
of relevant developments which
is delivered via the Symphony
messaging application to either mo-
bile or desktop. It’s a scalable and
targeted solution which initiates a
two-way conversation and keeps
the relationship between trader
and portfolio manager as close as
possible, according to Joseph.
“Prior to having a bot like this,
traders would generally have
to manually identify relevant
recipients of those indications and
typically they would be manually
communicating to those specif-
ic portfolio managers in a more
ad-hoc basis,” he explains. “BETSI
News enables a desk to send out
those news and liquidity notifica-
tions in a consistent and auditable
manner to that systematically
determined audience.”
BETSI Indications works to
identify, automate and improve the
communication of block liquidity
signals, which enables brokers to
post targeted indications that are
fed directly into JPMAM’s propri-
etary order management system,
Spectrum Trading. By optimising
the identification and execution
efficiency for block liquidity,
traders are given an “integrated and
consistent view” and can monitor
liquidity opportunities in real-time,
Joseph added, while also reducing
impact on the market and total
trading costs.
The third functional area of the
bot is BETSI Bids, which Joseph
describes as a “relatively simple
but very important workflow”,
directing the flow of communi-
cation around RFQs through the
Symphony platform, with the bot
monitoring, reading, recording and
responding to quotes automatically.
“BETSI Bids enables brokers to
register bids in response to risk
price requests,” Joseph explained.
“We request a risk price in a basket
of stocks and BETSI will validate
the bid in a broker-specific room,
and they then flow directly into
Spectrum Trading, responding to
the broker as well. Even so far in
Q1, the desk has executed over 150
trades using BETSI Bids.”
While the bot has only been live
on the JPMAM equity desk since
Q1 this year, Joseph said that BET-
SI is already showing promising
results in terms of its operational
efficiencies and added value to
the trading workflow, whereas
quantifiable metrics may be harder
to come by for some of BETSI’s
functionalities.
“BETSI Indications, for instance,
can be measured: So far we've
rolled this out to 13 brokers and re-
ceived an excess of 15,000 different
indications since go live on 29 April
this year,” he said. “So, what was
previously so difficult to quantify,
what was previously fragmented
and difficult to consume across the
multiple chat windows or phone
calls, is now available in the consol-
idated Spectrum Trading platform.”
Issue 60 // TheTradeNews.com // 21