[ S U R V E Y | E X E C U T I O N M A N A G E M E N T S Y S T E M S ]
FlexTrade
FlexTrade has been busy over the past 12 months , adding targeted invitations to liquidity sources such as Liquidnet to its multi-asset trading blotter for equities . This has required good partnerships with liquidity providers and follows on from its work with Amazon Web Services in early 2019 to bring about one of the industry ’ s first cloud-based EMS . Much of this hard work has paid off in this year ’ s survey with the vendor receiving increased scores in 12 of the 13 aspects of service under review .
After some disappointing scores last year , FlexTrade recovered much of its standing in this year ’ s survey . Its average score of 5.91 was up 0.41 from last year ’ s 5.50 , the vendor boasts ‘ Very Good ’ scores in six categories and registered a definite improvement in its results compared to last year . Year-on-year increases were observed in all categories with the single exception of timeliness of updates for broker changes , which recorded a marginal decrease of 0.04 . The largest year-on-year increase was seen in the ease-of-use category , which shot up by 1.01 to 6.09 in 2020 . This represented the largest year-on-year category increase recorded across any of the providers profiled in this year ’ s survey .
FlexTrade recorded its highest score in the breadth of broker algorithms category ( 6.44 ) and also scored highly in the breath of direct connections to venues ( 6.23 ) and reliability and availability categories ( 6.17 ).
FlexTrade ’ s lowest score was registered in overall cost of operation ( 5.49 ), suggesting that the provider still has work to do on making its costs more competitive . Its worst year-on-year score was in the timeliness of updates for broker changes category , which declined by 0.04 . It shouldn ’ t take too much effort for FlexTrade to record future increases in this category . In terms of additional capabilities wanted , one head of trading at a large European based asset management firm calls for “ direct streaming in fixed income ”.
FLEXTRADE RATINGS FOR EMS PERFORMANCE
|
Reliability and
availability
|
Latency |
Client service
personnel
|
Ease-ofuse |
Handling of new
versions / releases
|
Breadth of broker
algorithms
|
Timeliness of updates
for broker changes
|
FIX capabilities |
6.17 6.09 5.88 6.09 5.62 6.44 5.80 6.02
|
Breadth of asset class
coverage
|
Breadth of direct
connections to venues
|
Product
development
|
Ease of integration to
internal systems
|
Overall cost of operation |
Average score |
5.68 6.23 5.67 5.69 5.49 5.91
KEY STATS |
|
|
|
6.44 |
5.49 |
+ 1.01 |
-0.04 |
Highest score ( breadth of broker algorithms ) |
Lowest score ( overall cost of operation ) |
Most improved ( ease-of-use ) |
Least improved ( timeliness of updates for broker changes ) |
|
|
|
Issue 65 // thetradenews . com // 75 |