Hedge Fund Middle Office includes a range of scalable, modular post-trade and pre-settlement services. The services are global and include technology solutions that help manage daily trade processing and profit-and-loss reporting, over-the-counter confirmation and valuation, collateral management, corporate action processing and cash management.

In addition, the solution allows hedge funds to move to a more variable operational cost model, which VitalVest said is an attractive feature in the current cost-constrained environment.

If you are interested in learning more about middle-office solutions offered by VitalVest, please feel free to email us for more info at info@vitalvest.com

The requests for proprietary code and algorithm parameters by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a Wall Street brokerage regulator, are part of investigations into suspicious market activity, said Tom Gira, executive vice president of FINRA’s market regulation unit.

“It’s not a fishing expedition or educational exercise. It’s because there’s something that’s troubling us in the marketplace,” he said in an interview.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, meanwhile, has also begun making requests for proprietary algorithmic trading data as part of its authority to examine financial firms for compliance with U.S. regulations, according to agency officials and outside lawyers.

The requests by SEC examiners are not necessarily related to any suspicions of specific wrong-doing, although the decision to ask for it can be triggered by a tip, complaint or referral.

According to interviews with attorneys, traders, industry executives and regulators, the unusual requests for algo code and other computerized trading strategies really ramped up this year and have targeted stock-trading firms such as broker dealers and hedge funds.

It has alarmed some traders who are afraid their “secret sauce” — intellectual property sometimes developed over years and at great cost — could get into the wrong hands, especially when SEC and FINRA examiners leave for the private sector.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/01/us-financial-regulation-algos-idUSTRE7806J420110901

The power of high speed GPU programming gives traders ability to  trades almost in real-time, thus it pays to be there first and ahead of the trading game. For more info on GPU/CUDA computing please visit Nvidia’s developer zone

Will FPGA & GPU technologies live the hype in finance? So, what can GPUs do now and in future as a trading technology? And where do we go from here?

Oracle is focusing on building a Java-based pre-engineered trading bundle this year in order to facilitate fast deployment and “fewer moving parts” to deal with for its customers. This development is aimed at tackling the challenge of performance versus time to market in the low latency trading architecture space. It would be based on Java enabled data grids and architectures on which trading infrastructures can be built could therefore provide more robust capabilities.

We will find our more about core Java-based pre-engineered trading bundle within months to come. Will be easier to implement and will it save time and money for both the software company/consultants and the users (Trading firms and its Customers, Capital Markets & Investment Banks).???

Java is HOT again!

Faster and better and mobile electronic trading systems will continue increased IT spending
Increased focus on electronic trading, including Ultra lower latency, co-location and access to new electronic
trading venues like mobile trading and direct data feeds from exchanges
Increased spending on derivative trading systems, both for ETD and OTC :
Both ETD and OTC derivatives will see an increase in volume; and with new rules (dodd frank bill) requiring
OTC products to move onto exchanges, with CCPs acting as clearers, new systems will have to be put
into place to manage the required collateral and margin.
Firms will have to invest in upgrading their risk management system :
Increased trading volumes, faster trading, more diverse types of securities traded, and new margining
and collateral rules will require that firms have capable risk management systems
Improving front-office, middle office and back office system capabilities
Firms will continue their perennial struggle to improve their middle and back office systems in order to
keep up with the ever increasing amount of trade volume – driven higher more quickly by the increase in
electronic trading systems. Wealth management firms will focus on upgrading advisor workstations and facilitating
customer communication
A focus on integration of multi-platform
New trend is to work off a single platform across the enterprise. Wealth management firms will continue to
focus on process and data integration.

Xilinx and Altera are the two biggest manufacturers followed by Lattice, Actel, Quicklogic, SiliconBlue, Achronix, Tabula, and Tier Logic.  FPGAs vary in application, power consumption, and interfacing to standard buses to name a few.

Do you think this Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) in future will replace the existing trading system and become Next Wave of  high-frequency trading (HFT) Technology?

Will these Secondary Marketplace  (Second Markets) succeed or end up as a wholesale auction site for Alternative Assets Class like ebay is for goods?  Which company do you think has edge over the other and why? Do you think any of them can successfully navigate and aggregate transaction data and work more as a neutral interdealer broker in this space like  iCAP has done with the debt and equity markets and BondDesk has done with odd lot fixed income.

VitalVest has been instrumental providing technology consulting, suggesting technology and building custom .Net and Java trading System for Second Markets. If you require any help please feel free to consult us.

]]> http://vitalvest.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/vitalvest-specializes-in-secondary-private-market-technology-advisory-execution-and-processing/feed/ 2 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 vitalvest http://vitalvest.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/103/ http://vitalvest.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/103/#comments Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:11:47 +0000 VitalVest http://vitalvest.wordpress.com/?p=103 ]]> Chief information officer (CIO), or information technology (IT) director, is a job title commonly given to the most senior executive in an enterprise responsible for the information technology and computer systems that support enterprise goals. In Financial Services and Investment Banking, an industry focused on data and financial analysis, technology is as much a part of the business as the traders, portfolio managers and risk managers who develop financial products. In Electronic Financial Markets, algorithmic trading or automated trading, also known as “high-frequency trading” (HFT), Low-latency trading, algo trading, black-box trading or robo trading, is the use of computer programs for entering trading orders with the computer algorithm deciding on aspects of the order such as the timing, price, or quantity of the order, or in many cases initiating the order without human intervention. Effective management of information technology resources that support the business has always been a priority for financial services CIOs. However, now that financial firms are beginning to once again cut staff and expenses as the banking industry faces cost pressures and declining revenues, efficient IT systems management is vital for technology executives.

Without the ability to run an integrated and cost effective IT organization, CIOs risk not being able to respond to business goals and provide technology support to the portions of the enterprise that drive business. Most of the Investment banks and Hedge fund firms rely on VitalVest c/o NHP Consulting LLC., for their Financial Services/Computer IT Consulting. We have been serving Wall Street clients for almost 12 years and know the financial service industry inside out.

The principals at NHP Consulting LLC has been instrumental with designing and architecting several enterprise-wide solutions. We have deep knowledge and experience with implementing Electronic Trading, Connectivity, Middle-office and Regulatory Compliance Reporting solutions. We are equally knowledgeable and Experienced within Java,Open Source and Microsoft technologies. We have worked with several global major firms within Capital Markets segment.

The newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) are responsible for writing the regulations that will enforce this legislation. The first step in the rulemaking process for the Volcker Rule is for the FSOC to complete a study of the legislation and make recommendations to the FRB, Federal Depository Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

Institutions have a seven year timeframe to become compliant with the final regulations.