The War of the Algorithms Emerging Trends in Algorithmic Trading Dr John Bates Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer Apama VP Event Processing Products.
Post on 23-Dec-2015
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The War of the AlgorithmsEmerging Trends in Algorithmic
Trading
Dr John BatesCo-Founder &
Chief Technology OfficerApama
VP Event Processing Products
Progress Real-time Division
Agenda
• Emerging trends & requirements – Commoditization vs “Build Your Own”– Algorithmic War– Cross-Asset Class Algorithmic Trading
• Next Generation Algo Trading– Algo Trading Engines– Flexible Connectivity– Rapid Strategy Modelling Tools
• The Future– Self-evolving Algorithms
• Conclusions
The Interest in Algorithmic Trading
• Buyside– Competitive advantage
• Capitalize on opportunities before competitors
– Leveraging Traders’ skills• Scale each trader
– Cost advantages
• Sellside– Increase trading
volume– Attract & retain
customers
Some Statistics
• TowerGroup– “…continued growth in total
algorithmic trading, with volume doubling through 2006 and algorithmic trading initiated by the buy side tripling during the same period”
• ITG– “Algorithmic trading in use in 60% of
US buy-side firms and this percentage is set to grow”
– “The take up in Europe is currently thought to be about half of that in the US, but is expected to rise dramatically”
Black Box Strategies
• Most common way to algo trade
• Easily accessible through FIX and buy-side OMS
Instrument
Quantity
Num slices
Start time
End time
VWAP
Buy/Sell
Risks of Commoditization
• Black Box Strategies– If everyone has the same black boxes =
cancels out competitive advantage– Limited scope to use your skills – can only
parameterize– Often there isn’t a module that offers
exactly the algorithm required– An algorithm is tied to a particular broker– Can be expensive
• Pressure to differentiate– Hard for buy-side to understand what makes
one broker’s strategies better than another’s
– Fixed capability modules are too inflexible – pressure to offer cost-effective customization
– Buy-side want to know “how it works”
• Build your own– Takes a huge amount of time
& effort (IT cycle)– Maintenance issues
• Markets are continually evolving– First mover gets the
advantage– Lost opportunity cost of slow
evolution
Build Your Own
Algorithmic War
• Algorithms need to continually evolve– Competing with other algorithms
over current opportunities– New opportunities emerging– Avoid being reverse engineered– Opportunities may disappear
• Evolve or perish!
Cross-Asset Class Strategies
• Interest is growing for algorithmic trading in multiple asset classes– Equities, Futures, Forex, Bonds– Trading and Market-making (e.g.
bond pricing)
• Strategies should also be able to combine multiple asset classes– Example:
• Buy an equity, hedge with a future• Wave trade the equity
– Slice volumes based on historic volume profile
– Time slices into market based on a slightly random wave period
• Take foreign exchange position if equity is in different currency
Summary of Emerging Requirements
• Desire for competitive differentiation through strategy customization
• Desire to achieve this customization rapidly to capitalize on opportunities– Survive in the algorithmic war
• Desire to support algorithmic trading across multiple asset classes
A Plug-and-Play Approach
• Some proven Pre-trade Analytic strategies
– VWAP– Pairs– Index Arbitrage– Basket– Spread
• Combined with order management strategies
– Wave Trading/Iceberg
– Out of Market Limits
– Active re-pricing– Timeout if not
Filled– Smart Order
Routing
FeedbackFeedback
An institution’s strategy is likely to combine known analytic & order
management strategies + their secret ingredient
Need Algorithm Hosting Environment
• Hosting environment for strategies– Describe a strategy & upload into algorithmic
trading engine– Enables strategies to be easily & rapidly
created and/or extended• Efficient strategy execution
– Exploit latest “complex event processing” logic
– Plumbed directly into any number of market data feeds & order management systems
Trading Strategies
Data Feeds, e.g. Market Data, News
Actions, e.g. Place Order
Access All Markets
• Need extensible integration architecture to plug into any Exchange, OMS, Middleware etc.
• Abstract underlying connections, enabling strategies to be– Exchange-Independent– Asset Class Neutral– Backtested with simulators or historical data
IntegrationFrameworkIntegrationFramework
FIXFIXReutersReutersSonic MQSonic MQ GLGL
Business-Focussed Modelling• Enable business user to
compose, deploy, evolve and manage algorithmic strategies
• Business-focussed modelling of strategies – so users can “go inside” and customize
• Generate/evolve strategies in hours rather than weeks
• Upload directly to algorithm hosting environment
Modelling Trading Strategies
Business
User
Orders Filled
Orders Timed Out
Orders Placed
Monitor Spread Need to be
able to define strategy
process flow
Modelling Trading Strategies
Business
User
VWAP EMA
MACD
P&L
Basket
Spread
Price Feed
Inst1
Inst2MySpread
Need to be able to plug
in analytics & data sources
Spread
Orders Filled
Orders Timed Out
Orders Placed
Monitor Spread
Modelling Trading Strategies
Business
User
Orders Filled
Orders Timed Out
Orders Placed
Monitor Spread
Price Feed
Inst1
Inst2
Need to be able to define trading rules
Spread
WHEN
THEN
Spread is greater than Threshold
BuyLeg place order
SellLeg place order
Move to state [Order Placed]
MySpread
Event ManagerEvent Manager
Reuters AdapterReuters AdapterFIX AdapterFIX Adapter
ODBC AdapterODBC Adapter
Tier 1 Futures Broker
+ Apama Strategies + Scenario ManagerExisting portal
Database Server for Historic data access & storage and Back testing
Fix Gateway
“Advanced Trading”
Clie
nt
view
Ser
ver
sid
e
UK Hedge Fund – Forex Trading
• Routing orders across multiple FX liquidity pools based on price and availability
EBS Adapter
EBS Adapter
Hotspot AdapterHotspot Adapter
Risk Model
FXStrategy
user tools
Tier 1 Investment Bank - Bond Pricing
• Highly competitive pricing of bonds across inter-dealer and client networks
Historic ClientPerformance
Client-facing Bond Market
Inter-dealer bond markets
Inter-dealer market Adapter
Inter-dealer market Adapter
Real-time Trade Dashboards
Internal middleware
Adapter
Internal middleware
Adapter
Bond Strategy
Target Exposure
QuotingEngine
Start of day & intra-day positions
Market data
Price Adjustments
Market data
Price Adjustments
The Future
• Algorithms will not replace humans– They just help trading
groups scale their own capabilities
• Self-Evolving Algorithms– 1000s of permutations of the
same algorithm•All slightly different•All with simulated P&L
– Swap in most profitable
Summary
• To compete successfully in the “war of the algorithms”, algorithmic trading systems must support– Rapid evolution & customization of
strategies– Cross-asset class strategies– Support for business users to do this
• Advantages can be realised with architectures involving– General purpose algorithm hosting
engine– Integration to all data points– Business focussed environment to
compose, deploy and manage strategies
Questions?
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