Wall Street Letter VOL. XLV, NO. 29 - Sept. 16, 2013 | Page 6
NEWS
needed provisions to access such as a new exchange line and building out risk tools to appropriate margin products,” said Hart. DATA
Etrali to combine compliance data offerings
Etrali Trading Solutions aims to streamline its compliance data storage centers in the coming year, according to Antoine Stephen, managing director and vice-president of North America. The company is retooling the databases that store voice data and chart data to unify them under a single search engine, according to Stephen. A regulator or client wishing to track trade data would utilize a search engine that would comb through the combined database and present data, a search that currently requires significant human capital and time to discover, noted Stephen. “When a bank gets a request from regulation people saying that they
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want the communication and data circling a trade, it is carried out manually,” said Stephen. “This takes many days to complete and in terms of resources it is not streamlined. Our next step is to merge voice and data databases.” The combination is slated to be completed by the end of 2014, according to Stephen. He said it will signal the conclusion of Etrali’s threestage evolution of the compliance suite, which is comprised of Etrali’s voice and data storage network, and the recording capabilities that track this data. The most recent offering, which came out in June, is a mobile recording capability that records voice data from trades made via cellular devices, noted Stephen. By recording these conversations, regulators and clients can derive pre-execution information that is required to be kept in a searchable format by investment banks for a minimum of one year by the SEC, according to Stephen. Etrali’s core customers are the large investment banks, according to Stephen. A total of 15 customers have been on-boarded since 2012, he noted.
EXCHANGES & ATSs
BOX touts price improvement stats
The BOX Options Exchange is touting positive statistics coming out of its Price Improvement Period (PIP) program in a filing with the SEC as part of an argument that a set of pilot fees for the program should be permanent. BOX’s pilot, which launched in February 2012 and expired at the end of last month, added fees for adding liquidity and rebates to taking liquidity to PIP transactions. These trades are already assessed BOX’s standard transaction fees. The exchange said that despite comments from industry participants that the fees could limit participation, the majority of the statistics gathered and reported to the regulator indicate otherwise. It noted the contract volume in PIP transactions grew during the pilot period to 850,000 when BOX was at the NBBO (or 900,000 when BOX was not at the NBBO) from 650,000 when
EXCHANGES & ATSs
NFX lowers block trade threshold for gold contract
T
he Nasdaq OMX Futures Exchange plans to significantly lower the block trade threshold for its 10 Troy ounce gold futures contract in a bid to attract volume, according to a rule proposal it submitted to the CFTC. Specifically, NFX said it will reduce the block trade threshold for the gold futures from 100 to 10. The contracts launched last month. The exchange said the block trade threshold has been set at 100 since launch in line with its existing rules. But “the gold contract has not had activity to date and the reduction of the block trade threshold is intended to generate activity in the gold contract”, it told the regulator. The reduction would make it easier to exit positions, NFX said, particularly as the exchange is not open 24 hours a day like other futures exchanges. NFX also noted its reduction would still not result in the
lowest block trading threshold among exchanges offering gold futures contracts. As an example, NFX cited the five contract threshold in effect at NYMEX for its Gold Volatility Index Futures. The change will take effect on September 25.