AiEX opens new chapter for trading in APAC

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April 29, 2024

Laurent Ischi, Director, AiEX and Workflow Solutions (APAC), Tradeweb

When it comes to the increased adoption of electronic trading in interest rate swaps and other derivatives products, 2023 was a truly transformative year for Tradeweb clients across the Asia Pacific region.

More traders than ever before are moving away from voice trading and manual processes and embracing electronic execution. We’ve seen this in the steady increase in clients using our automation tool – Automated Intelligent Execution (AiEX).

What’s behind this massive change in trading habits? As recently as three years ago, use of electronic execution in this product suite was fairly limited and voice trading still dominated in APAC. But once the Covid pandemic up-ended markets, we saw a sea change in habits and a rapid recognition that electronic trading can unlock huge efficiencies, allowing traders to focus on strategy, while at the same time spurring liquidity. Libor reforms also provided a helpful tailwind as we saw activity moving from the old to the new Risk-Free Rates (RFR) indexes across various currencies globally.

Since implementing AiEX into their trading strategies, clients have consistently reported enhanced workflows and a more seamless transaction experience, especially when executing systematic trading strategies. Clients are now trading swaps with multiple line items within seconds and drastically reducing the risk of errors associated with manual input. That’s because AiEX offers total control over every order, as clients are able to fine-tune pre-defined execution rules for a solution that is fully tailored to each trading strategy. What’s more, there is almost zero technology build involved, leveraging the existing FIX set-up for simple and rapid implementation, with no additional set up costs.

The key for Tradeweb has been to ensure that AiEX is intuitive to use, because increased speed and efficiency help traders focus on different strategies, while giving access to a wider and deeper liquidity pool. We have worked very hard in the last few years to boost functionality on the platform to expand upon what’s traded on voice. This includes list trading, two-way pricing, and trading across multiple products and currencies simultaneously.

It’s been remarkable to witness how traders’ perceptions of electronic workflows have changed in short order, since APAC didn’t have the electronic trading mandates that are familiar to market participants in Europe and the U.S., and where the habit of voice dealing has been well entrenched.

New types of participants

Another interesting trend we have seen is how new types of clients are embracing the electronic trading ecosystem, as well as the related emergence of trading strategies across the APAC region that were previously uncommon or non-existent. Four years ago, it was mostly global clients trading on the platform with only a handful of local clients using the electronic solution. Now we have a very different mix of clients, mostly APAC-based, who are actively trading across all regions, electronically.

In addition, while we initially focused our efforts with AiEX on our historical customer base such as asset managers, we quickly saw other client types in APAC emerge as users, particularly sovereign wealth funds and hedge funds.

While many associate automation with the idea of automating a significant amount of smaller tickets, it’s almost the opposite for sovereign wealth funds who tend to deploy a few, relatively large tickets. Hedge funds – driven by systematic strategies in swaps in particular – have started to use AiEX. The tool has allowed them to port execution approaches they use in other markets such as equities, futures or FX, where central limit order books are common to a product range that is request-for-quote (RFQ) based. In this way, as more institutions deploy automation to realise new strategies, AiEX brings new business to market, rather than just automating current workflows.

We have also seen the adoption of “time release”, a function of AiEX that allows traders to choose to put an order in the market when it’s most beneficial or convenient for them, without having to wait around to process the order, for example trading the open or the close. Previously, traders would have picked up the phone to a dealer; now they use automation where possible, to access markets in a more efficient way that suits their way of trading.

Australia and Hong Kong in focus

The automation adoption and usage can vary across clients. Some will do continuous trading throughout the day, some will be focused on a particular point in time. But what they all have in common is that the decision making for their trading is model-based in the background — and we have seen a lot of demand for this out of APAC, for both systematic trading models used by hedge funds, and the index rebalancing models used by asset managers. In terms of product, we have seen very strong adoption of AiEX in Japanese, Chinese and Australian government bonds.

Tradeweb significantly enhanced its ability to seamlessly connect markets in Australia and New Zealand with our global network of clients and dealers through the acquisition in August 2023 of Yieldbroker, a leading Australian trading platform for Australian and New Zealand government bonds and interest rate derivatives covering the institutional and wholesale client sectors. Tradeweb customers worldwide now benefit from improved access to Australia and New Zealand’s growing bond and derivatives marketplaces, allowing them to express nuanced views that include Australia and New Zealand as important parts of their global strategies through the single Tradeweb interface.

Regarding Chinese government bonds, we have seen very strong adoption of AiEX in this product suite out of Hong Kong in the last twelve months, as activity has picked up there after a year in which Singapore had dominated. We see significant pent-up demand in Hong Kong, in fact.

More broadly, we now see that clients in APAC have not just embraced automation but in some instances are going a step further, leading automation in other products. It’s been exciting watching how AiEX has opened a new chapter for trading in APAC, and we believe there are many more clients to benefit from automated workflows. www.tradeweb.com

*Industry Viewpoints comprise sponsored content and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor.

©Markets Media Europe 2024 TOP OF PAGE

Announcing the Global Trading AI Sentiment Survey 2024

By

Lauren McAughtry

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April 29, 2024

How do you use AI, and has it made an appreciable impact on your business yet? Global Trading is sizing the market and gauging the sentiment for artificial intelligence usage at the coalface of trading – have your say here.

Whether it’s GenAI or machine learning, large language models or predictive pattern recognition, AI is the buzzword of the year. Permeating almost every panel at TradeTech in Paris last week, AI has edged its way into mainstream consciousness – but has it edged its way onto your desktop yet?

COMPLETE THE GT AI SURVEY HERE.

Launched on Buy-side Innovation Day at TradeTech, this new survey from Global Trading aims to size and sort the usage of AI across the industry – from sell-side to buy-side, traders to vendors. How are you using AI, and what for? Is it making your job easier, or taking jobs away? Is it going to change the world, or is it the emperor’s new clothes?

Whatever your views, AI is a key issue to consider, and a key competitive element to keep up with. Please spare a few moments of your time to complete this quick survey, and tell us how AI is being used in your organisation.

Results will be published in Global Trading’s Summer (Q2) edition.

Sponsored by ipushpull and AMD.

Goldman Sachs leads in Q1 equities trading revenue

By

Lucy Carter

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April 29, 2024

David Solomon, CEO and chairman, Goldman Sachs

J.P. Morgan led the pack in terms of overall revenue, recording US$41.9 billion in the first quarter. It was followed by Bank of America, with US$25.8 billion, and Citi, with US$21.1 billion.

Commenting on the quarter, Brian Moynihan, chair and CEO at Bank of America, said: “Our businesses performed well, adding clients and deepening relationships. Bank of America’s sales and trading businesses continued their strong 2023 momentum this quarter, reporting

the best first quarter in over a decade. Continued strong earnings and strong expense management both position our company to continue to drive our market leading positions across our businesses.”

Considering net income J.P. Morgan saw the greatest results (US$13.4 billion), followed by Bank of America (US$8 billion), Wells Fargo (US$4.6 billion) and Goldman Sachs (US$4 billion). Citi trailed with US$3.4 billion.

Charlie Scharf, CEO of Wells Fargo, commented, “Our solid first quarter results demonstrate the progress we continue to make to improve and diversify our financial performance. The

investments we are making across the franchise contributed to higher revenue versus the fourth quarter as an increase in noninterest income more than offset an expected decline in net interest income.”

Goldman Sachs saw the most lucrative quarter in equities trading, with revenue of US$3.3 billion. The bank had a significant lead on first runner-up J.P. Morgan, which recorded US$2.6 billion over the three months. Bank of America noted US$1.8 billion, and Citi US$1.2 billion. Despite success in overall net income, Wells Fargo fell behind with US$450 million in equities trading revenue.

David Solomon, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO stated: “Our first quarter results reflect the strength of our interconnected franchises and the earnings power of Goldman Sachs. We continue to execute on our strategy, focusing on our core strengths to serve our clients

and deliver for our shareholders.”

Looking ahead, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of J.P. Morgan, warned that although several economic indicators are favourable “we remain alert to a number of significant uncertain forces. First, the global landscape is unsettling – terrible wars and violence continue to cause suffering, and geopolitical tensions are growing.

“Second, there seems to be a large number of persistent inflationary pressures, which may likely continue. And finally, we have never truly experienced the full effect of quantitative tightening on this scale. We do not know how these factors will play out, but we must prepare the firm for a wide range of potential environments to ensure that we can consistently be there for clients.”

©Markets Media Europe 2024

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‘A moment of transition’ – EU Listing Act goes live

By

Lauren McAughtry

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April 26, 2024

On Wednesday night the European Parliament officially adopted the EU Listing Act – a crucial turning point for the EU’s primary markets, retail market inclusion and, by extension, overall liquidity. But what does the Act really entail – and how does it plan to fix what has long been broken?

In 2023, global IPO volumes fell 8% year-on-year with proceeds down by 33% compared with 2022, according to EY, with 2023 being the lowest for proceeds in five years. In Europe, total IPO issuance fell by a third (35%) to raise EUR10.2bn over the year. And in the UK, IPO proceeds were down 40% in 2023. Stagnant primary market activity in the region is a very real concern.

The background

First proposed by the European Commission in December 2022, the Listing Act is a package of measures to review the Prospectus Regulation, Market Abuse Regulation, Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation and Directive (MiFIR/MiFID II), and to introduce a new Directive on multiple-vote share structures.

“The public listing process is cumbersome and costly for EU companies, especially small businesses (SMEs) – which deters EU companies from raising funds on capital markets and means they miss out on the benefits of going public, such as exposure to a wider investor base, higher growth and job creation,” said the Commission.

The initiative aims to simplify the listing requirements, including post-listing, in order to make public capital markets more attractive for EU companies and facilitate access to capital for SMEs.

The journey

Approved by the European Parliament and adopted into law this week, the Act hopes to transform and improve European IPO volumes – which in turn, should help support regional liquidity. But how did we get here in the first place?

“There still is no single primary market in the EU, despite a decade of ambition to build a Capital Markets Union,” believes Michael Collins, director of policy and government affairs at fintech platform PrimaryBid, which helps retail investors to access share sales, raising EUR30m for European companies over the past three years.

“The different markets in EU member states are showing signs of becoming more integrated and cross-border, as PrimaryBid has shown through the cross-border deals it has facilitated. But we still have a European primary market that is considerably more fragmented than that in the US. Within that there are primary market success stories in the EU – Sweden, for example – but there’s still work to do, both at the national and EU levels.”

The plan

So how will the EU Listing Act address some of these issues? First, it will raise the threshold at which an issuer must produce a prospectus, and removes prospectus requirements for securities that are fungible with those already listed – thus ‘uncapping’ offers which include retail investors. Second, it reduces the number of days an IPO has to remain open. Third, it harmonises deal documents across the EU, making cross-border deals easier to execute.

“The Listing Act is a significant set of reforms that have the potential to make a real difference to the attractiveness of the EU as a place to list and to the inclusion of retail investors,” said Collins. “It sends a powerful signal to issuers and to investors: the EU wants public markets to thrive, and it wants to promote more retail participation in them. It removes some of the barriers and disincentives to listing in the EU and makes it more attractive for issuers to include retail investors when they do decide to go public.”

The impact

It should be noted that despite a tricky 2023, the first quarter of this year has already shown positive momentum in the primary market, with PwC reporting the highest IPO proceeds raised in Europe since Q1 2021. The after-market performance of the European IPOs in this quarter has also been mostly positive, with 80% of top IPOs ending Q1 in positive territory. Successful private equity-backed IPOs and a backlog of maturing investments suggest a strong appetite for new listings, said PwC in its Q1 IPO Watch EMEA.

“Recent European IPO activity and largely positive aftermarket performance suggest we are entering a recovery phase of the IPO market,” said Kat Kravtsov, director of UK capital markets at PwC. “A diversified pipeline, strong market performance and low volatility continue to support a second half weighted IPO window with quality and valuation driving the investment decision.”

European IPOs raised EUR4.8bn in Q1 of this year, compared to GBP0.3bn UK IPO proceeds over the same period. However, the future could also be looking brighter for the UK market. “Regulatory changes in the London market, aimed at increasing the attractiveness of listing in London, are due to come into effect this year and add to the earlier Edinburgh and Mansion House reforms,” pointed out PwC. “These regulatory changes, the improving macroeconomic outlook and significant IPO pipeline point to potentially a pivotal year for the UK capital markets. Q1 2024 saw notable follow-on equity transactions on the London Stock Exchange.”

The future

The recent Letta Report on the EU single market identified a wide range of initiatives that are needed to build a Savings & Investment Union in Europe. But the challenge for the next European Commission and the next European Parliament will not be to diagnose the problems faced by EU capital markets, but to harness the political will to deliver reform.

“The Listing Act is a great example of the EU’s capacity to move at pace when it is motivated to do so. We need to build on that drive,” urged Collins.

Financial market data and news spending up, says TP ICAP

By

Lucy Carter

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April 26, 2024

Global spending on financial market data and news rose by 12.4% US$42 billion in 2023, according to new data from Burton Taylor, a division of Parameta Solutions, owned by TP ICAP.

Real-time trading and data spending held the greatest share of revenue, however demand for pricing, reference and valuation data drove overall spending.

More than 50% of revenue was earned in the Americas – an increase from 48% in 2018. EMEA generated 31% of the total, while Asia contributed just under 19%.

Bloomberg retained its position as global market data leader, holding the greatest share of the business. Along with LSEG Data & Analytics and S&P Global Market Intelligence, it was one of the sole providers to finish 2023 with a double-digit market share.

In terms of growth, Moody’s Analytics saw the sharpest revenue increase over the year, followed by FactSet and S&P Global Market Intelligence.

On what has driven this increase, Hadley Weinberger, senior analyst at Burton Taylor, commented: “The rapid growth of AI and similar advanced analytical technologies have elevated the value of market data beyond the level we’ve seen in recent years, driving notably higher growth rates in 2023. Financial institutions are already using generative AI and other artificial intelligence tools across all areas of their operation, driving demand for data not only for trading and risk but also to extract intelligence in other operational areas of the business.”

©Markets Media Europe 2024

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Buy side expects research budgets to stabilise post-rebundling

By

GlobalTrading

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April 26, 2024

A cross-industry survey from Global Trading and Substantive Research found a lack of confidence that the buy side would be able return research costs to clients. But now that rebundling is definitely on its way, what does the industry expect to see? And what do they want the new rules to prioritise?

Analysis from Substantive Research in August 2023 found that 85% of buy-side firms would welcome removing external research costs from their P&Ls. However, they added that regardless of regulatory decisions a number of obstacles stood in the way of this, and a large majority (90%) had no plans to make changes to their practices until the final details of an FCA plan into attribution of costs were published. A further 85% said that even if FCA rules aligned with EU reforms, they did not expect to be able to return research costs to their end investors.

Research Fig 1 With this in mind it is perhaps unsurprising that a Q4 2023 cross-industry survey by Global Trading, in partnership with Substantive Research, found that 68% of respondents did not expect the UK and EU-based buy side to return research costs to clients once the FCA and the EU implement their research recommendations.

The 38% who did expect this, however, have been proved right – with both the UK and EU in recent months confirming plans to rebundle research. The UK confirmed its plans to roll back MiFID II research unbundling rules in July 2023 (on the back of the Investment Research Review by Rachel Kent) and the European Council affirmed this February that its agreement with the European Parliament would allow the rebundling of payments for research and execution of orders under the EU Listing Act.

A lack of confidence in this outcome was mainly down to unknowns around the detail that the FCA’s rules would go into, and the implications that this would have on operational complexity and cost. A further 19% reported that they had no appetite to approach clients to reintroduce these costs.

Those who expected costs to be returned to clients were primarily convinced by the idea that end investors are more focused on transparency, so that if the correct disclosures exist they would accept the change, with 19% stating that this was the main reason it was achievable. Among those who did not expect costs to be returned, more than a quarter (26%) stated that clear and specific guidelines from the FCA and EU Listing Act covering disclosure – that were not left open to interpretation – would enable implementation.

Research Fig2 More than half (52%) of participants stated that flexibility for the buy side to pay for research in whichever way is appropriate was what they were most hoping to see in the final FCA and EU Listing Act rules. This was by far the most popular choice for the buy side, with 68% selecting this option.

The second priority, according to the survey results, was freedom for the buy side to set up traditional CSA programmes in the name of the broker, rather than using RPA structures which would be in the asset manager’s name. Interestingly, the sell side spearheaded this ranking with more than 60% hoping for it to be included in the rules, compared to just 31% of the buy side.

Along with this, two other potential components of the Listing Rules shared second place on the buy side’s priorities list: clear and definitive guidance on how much disclosure on buy side research payments to end investor clients would be required, and clear stipulation that the sell side cannot force bundled payments. By contrast, just 9% of the sell side favoured the latter point.

A further 38% were looking for freedom for the buy side to set up traditional CSA programmes in the name of the broker, rather than using RPA structures which would be in the asset manager’s name. Around a quarter wanted either clear and definitive guidance on how much disclosure on buy side research payments to end investor clients would be required, or clear stipulation that the sell side cannot force bundled payments to be included.

Following implementation, a third of participants expect to see research budgets stabilise where they may otherwise have decreased. This opinion was the most popular of the buy side (37%), followed by an expectation of “no likely change” (31%). On the sell side this was reversed, with 27% predicting stabilisation and 36% anticipating no change.

Research Fig3 The impact of this on research supply was also considered, and produced far less consistent results. Of those surveyed, 22% expected to see research on SMEs increase. A further 22% said niche brokers would benefit from greater budget availability, an opinion held by 45% of the sell side. The most popular buy-side prediction was that more budget would be available to bulge bracket firms (16%), with none from the group expecting to see independent research providers granted more budget.

Of those in the survey, 36% had US$0-10bn in assets under management. A third held more than US$50bn, and 12% reported between US$10-50bn. Respondents included 45% buy-side, 26% sell-side and 26% from other areas.

©Markets Media Europe 2024 TOP OF PAGE

Cboe Global Markets overhauls digital asset operations

By

Lucy Carter

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April 26, 2024

Cboe Global Markets is set to update its digital asset business, focusing on derivatives, technology, product innovation and operational efficiency.

The company expects to transition and fully integrate its digital assets derivatives into its Global Derivatives and Clearing business, with the goal of improving efficiency and bolstering the exchange-traded digital asset derivatives market. John Palmer, president of Cboe Digital, will become head of US derivatives market development.

Cboe Digital Spot Market will be wound down in Q3 2024, the company confirmed. This is not expected to have a material impact on the exchange’s 2024 net revenue, it commented, and will provide significant expense savings in 2024 and beyond.

Cash-settled bitcoin and ether futures contracts available on the Cboe Digital Exchange are expected to transition to the Cboe Futures Exchange (CFE) in the first half of 2025. This will consolidate the company’s futures products onto a single exchange, Cboe explained, improving efficiency globally and strengthening the support available for its digital asset derivatives.

Additionally, Cboe Clear Digital will be aligned with Cboe Clear Europe and run under

Vikesh Patel, president, Cboe Clear Europe

unified leadership. Cboe Clear Europe president Vikesh Patel will now oversee US clearing in addition to his current role.

The decision has been made as part of Cboe’s strategic review, with consideration to the lack of regulatory clarity in the digital space.

David Howson, global president of Cboe, said: “Bringing digital asset derivatives and clearing into our existing business lines enables us to leverage the full breadth of our global derivatives team and unlock the full value of Cboe to our clients around the world. We expect to continue to see greater demand for exchange-traded derivatives to help manage crypto exposures, hedge risk and enhance capital and operational efficiencies.”

Fred Tomczyk, CEO of Cboe Global Markets, commented: “Refocusing our digital asset business enables us to refine our strategy, leveraging our core strengths in derivatives, technology and product innovation to help maximise opportunities for our business and deliver efficiencies for Cboe and our clients. We believe these changes enable greater optimisation and strategic alignment for our business across geographies and asset classes, further supporting our long-term growth strategy.”

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Constrained and fragmented trading volumes call for pragmatic innovation – not panic innovation

By

GlobalTrading

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April 25, 2024

Simon McQuoid-Mason, Head of Equity Products at SIX Swiss Exchange.

Market conditions for trading venues have been challenging of late. While listing and trading volumes in asset classes such as bonds, ETFs and similar assets have increased, fewer people are trading stocks through traditional methods, such as on lit exchanges. This has been testing for both market operators and trading participants alike.

Although it has seldom been so essential for market participants to maximise their share of traded volume via innovating existing offerings, these market factors have made the delivery of new initiatives difficult to justify within development pipelines and budgets. Delivering effective innovation in such a complex and competitive space is not easy, after all. On the one hand, there is the risk of over-engineering and adding unnecessary complexity to market processes. On the other, there is temptation to engage in ‘panic innovation’, whereby firms develop a ‘me-too’ solution that usually only serves to fragment, rather than complement, existing liquidity.

Both scenarios result in new innovations being starved of liquidity, either due to slow adoption or a lack of perceived benefits for prospective users. If this is the case, developing the solution becomes merely another resource drain on already stretched development pipelines – sometimes unearthing additional complexities due to being poorly aligned with existing workflows.

No one is arguing that markets should stand still, though. Innovation remains essential to improving trading conditions. Rather, against this backdrop, a pragmatic approach to innovation is essential. Ensuring new solutions provide a net benefit to market participants – spanning both the buy and sell sides of the market – is crucial. So too is ensuring its technological design complements existing workflows and interfaces, rather than hinders them.

While pragmatic innovations may take firms longer to develop and bring to market, the potential rewards for market operators – and most importantly, market participants – are significant. This approach is integral to how SIX brings new trading tools to its clients. In the following article, we explore how SIX has taken a pragmatic attitude to innovation to create tangible benefits for market participants, rather than myriad problems.

SwissAtMid

Winding back the clock almost a decade, we observed significant demand from market participants to trade equities electronically and in larger size on non-displayed orderbooks. This was driven by a desire to avoid information unnecessarily leaking to the market, which can impact pricing for large orders.

However, when trading in the dark, market participants have a wide variety of needs. These range from seeking price improvement on high-urgency liquidity seeking orders, to sourcing natural liquidity in size to minimise market impact and maximise execution performance.

Taking these diverse requirements into consideration, SIX Swiss Exchange developed SwissAtMid in 2016. The service operates on the same atomic matching cycle as the company’s central limit order book (CLOB). It offers users zero-latency sweep order functionality, as well as the ability to specify a Minimum Execution Quantity (MEQ) to mediate the shape – and type – of liquidity users interact with.

Since then, we have further evolved how participants can interact with SwissAtMid by introducing plus orders, which allow improved liquidity capture on orders pegged to the near touch, without risk of overfill. Conditional orders – otherwise known as indicative block orders – have been developed to allow participants more flexibility in finding contra block liquidity at the midpoint without risk of overfill.

Each of these innovations were introduced as additional order-types or routing instructions. This approach helps ensure liquidity is not unnecessarily fragmented into discrete pools, while still allowing trading participants to customise their liquidity interactions. As of 2024, SwissAtMid is the largest non-displayed pool of liquidity for the trading of Swiss securities, generating HF 15.9m of price improvement over the last year alone.

Auction Volume Discovery

Another well analysed and publicised development in markets over recent years has been the marked swell in equity volumes traded during primary auctions across Europe. Data shows a quarter of trade volume in Europe is conducted in primary auctions.

Following advancements in how trading participants approach auctions to minimise price impact, and the growing variety of participation strategies, internalisation, and risk-managed closing products, there was an elevated risk of fragmented liquidity during primary auctions. The risk was that this fragmentation could result in less efficient liquidity sourcing during the opening or the closing auction. Careful thought around how an innovative solution might alleviate this challenge for market participants was essential in this context.

With this in mind, SIX Swiss Exchange developed the Auction Volume Discovery (AVD) order type. This permits trading participants to inject latent liquidity – which refers to liquidity held back from participating in the auction to mitigate price impact – into the auction, without shifting displayed volume or price.

As such, the Auction Volume Discovery order type helps stitch together participation-capped liquidity, held discretely across our universe of trading participants, while simultaneously ameliorating the risk of information leakage and the associated price impact.

ETF QOD Europe

Finally, amid surging demand for access to ETFs across Europe, the most recent SIX innovation, ETF QOD Europe, sought to expand the scope of ETF products available to investors. Ease of access was also a priority, with ETF products scattered across numerous locations. We subsequently ensured users could access ETF products in one location via QOD. These ETF products are also CCP cleared, offering direct settlement into the CSD defined on the primary listings market.

ETF QOD Europe leverages SIX Swiss Exchange’s on-exchange RFQ trading mechanism – Quote on Demand (QOD) – to deliver these advantages. This sits alongside its displayed orderbooks for ETFs and offers inbound orders to sweep across both mechanisms to find price improvement.

This set-up makes it easier for trading participants to seek liquidity within their existing electronic workflows, reconnecting fragmented liquidity channels, promoting post-trade fungibility and, ultimately, enhancing efficiency. In fact, as of 2024, over 95% of trades in QOD were executed at the European best bid offer (EBBO) or better, driving considerable liquidity gains and greater execution quality.

*Market Viewpoints comprise sponsored content and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor.

Vanguard veteran Michael Lovett joins Bell Asset Management as CEO

By

Alex Pugh

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April 25, 2024

Following a year-long career break, Michael Lovett has been named CEO of Bell Asset Management.

After more than a decade at Vanguard Australia, Lovett will be leading the asset management firm in Melbourne, Australia.

Announcing the move on social media, Lovett said: “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Chief Executive Officer at Bell Asset Management! Had a fantastic break but ready to get back into it with a fantastic company. Look forward to reconnecting with everyone.”

Lovett began his Vanguard journey in 2011 as head of intermediary distribution, before becoming head of distribution at the firm in 2013, responsible for the institutional, adviser and retail direct markets. In 2017 he moved to Philadelphia, USA to lead Vanguard’s registered investment advisor (RIA) business in the States as part of the broader Financial Advisory Services (FAS) business.

In 2020, Lovett moved back to Australia to lead the superannuation business at Vanguard, leaving the firm in early 2023.

Lovett has also had stints at HSBC Asset Management as head of distribution, and at Challenger Financial Services Group in Melbourne, where he helped develop the Boutique Partnership (now Fidante) strategy at Challenger from concept to execution.

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Clearstream picks Fenergo for CLM solution

By

Lucy Carter

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April 25, 2024

Clearstream has adopted Fenergo’s client lifecycle management (CLM) solutions to improve its client onboarding process.

Fenergo offers policy-driven risk assessments for anti-money laundering, know-your-customer and regulatory compliance requirements.

Through the partnership Clearstream will be able to further digitalise its onboarding and due diligence processes, Fenergo said, minimising manual processes and duplication and reducing data silos.

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Laurent Ischi, Director, AiEX and Workflow Solutions (APAC), Tradeweb

How do you use AI, and has it made an appreciable impact on your business yet? Global Trading is sizing the market and gauging the sentiment for artificial intelligence usage at the coalface of trading – have your say here.

J.P. Morgan led the pack in terms of overall revenue, recording US$41.9 billion in the first quarter. It was followed by Bank of America, with US$25.8 billion, and Citi, with US$21.1 billion.

On Wednesday night the European Parliament officially adopted the EU Listing Act – a crucial turning point for the EU’s primary markets, retail market inclusion and, by extension, overall liquidity. But what does the Act really entail – and how does it plan to fix what has long been broken?

Global spending on financial market data and news rose by 12.4% US$42 billion in 2023, according to new data from Burton Taylor, a division of Parameta Solutions, owned by TP ICAP.

Cboe Global Markets is set to update its digital asset business, focusing on derivatives, technology, product innovation and operational efficiency.

Simon McQuoid-Mason, Head of Equity Products at SIX Swiss Exchange.

Following a year-long career break, Michael Lovett has been named CEO of Bell Asset Management.

Clearstream has adopted Fenergo’s client lifecycle management (CLM) solutions to improve its client onboarding process.

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