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FlexTrade
FlexTrade is an industry pioneer in broker-neutral execution management trading platforms and offers three buy-side solutions with EMS functionality - FlexTRADER EMS , FlexONE and Spark EMS . Over the past year , FlexTrade has made strides in building out its multi-asset class solution , FlexTRADER EMS , and has achieved strong growth across its products and business overall . Earlier this year , FlexTrade announced the launch of FlexA , a voice-activated application that provides a layer of AI across its flagship FlexTRADER EMS to simplify the interaction between trader and technology to easily and intuitively work with vast swathes of data . FlexTrade received 38 ratings from the buy-side this year , which is up slightly from the 35 received in 2022 and places the vendor fourth in terms of total number of responses to the survey .
FlexTrade recorded an overall average score of 6.04 in this year ’ s survey , which despite falling 13 basis points below its 2022 score of 6.17 , lands firmly above the survey average ( 5.94 ). FlexTrade outperformed the benchmarks in nine of thirteen functional aspects of service under review , with the most significant being
the key areas of client service personnel and product development , where the vendor scored 36 basis points above the category average . Unsurprisingly other areas of outperformance include breadth of asset class coverage (+ 0.24 ) and breadth of broker algorithms (+ 0.16 ). Despite strong performance overall , FlexTrade only recorded year-over-year improvements in three areas : client service personnel (+ 0.17 ), reliability and availability (+ 0.13 ) and breadth of asset class coverage (+ 0.05 ). FlexTrade lowest scores in this year ’ s survey were overall cost of operation ( 5.70 ) and ease of integration to internal systems ( 5.71 ).
Over 60 % of clients responding to FlexTrade were from buy-side firms managing upward of $ 50 billion in assets . In terms of desired additional capabilities from respondents this year , clients noted a need for more sophisticated automated routing and listening logic , enhanced data visualisation and analytics tools , and increased breadth of venue connectivity . Sticking with the AI theme , one respondent requested additional capabilities around using AI / machine learning to come up with trading strategy recommendations .
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 |
6.36 6.19 6.40 5.97 5.82 6.20 5.93 6.26
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 |
5.96 6.04 6.01 5.71 5.70 6.04
KEY STATS Overall Outperformer : Category Outperformer : X9
6.40
Highest score ( client service personnel )
5.70
Lowest score ( overall cost of operation )
+ 0.17
Most improved ( client service personnel )
-0.39
Least improved ( ease of integration to internal systems )
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