Peel Hunt’s head of electronic and program trading Nishad Vallonthaiel is departing for pastures new, The TRADE can reveal.A spokesperson for Peel Hunt confirmed Vallonthaiel’s departure and that the firm was actively recruiting to fill the role.Vallonthaiel could not be reached for comment.His next role is unconfirmed.Vallonthaiel was appointed head of electronic and program trading at Peel Hunt in 2023 after most recently serving at Numis Securities.Read more – Peel Hunt selects former Numis electronic and program trading head to lead division in similar rolePrior to moving to the UK and joining Numis, Vallonthaiel also served in a variety of hedge fund and private banking roles in Switzerland. Since moving to the UK, he has served in senior electronic and program focused roles.Previous companies include Bloomberg Tradebook, Execution, Canaccord, C.I.M Banque, Banca Commerciale, and Lugano Espirito Santo Investment Bank.The TRADE reported in April that Numis had shuttered its low touch electronic trading desk after concluding the unit was not part of its core business.In the same week, Deutsche Bank confirmed it was set to acquire institutional broker Numis for £410 million, according to documents seen by The TRADE.The post Peel Hunt’s head of electronic trading departs appeared first on The TRADE.

Henri Sinet has joined Kepler Cheuvreux as senior credit sales, in a push to expand the firm’s fixed income business.  Sinet brings 10 years of trading experience to his new position, which will see him working out of Paris.  Previously, he worked as a credit trader at Mizuho from April 2023 to November 2024, and held the same position at CIC Market Solutions for over two years, covering market-making on EUR investment grade corporate bonds. He has also worked as a technical analyst at FlexTrade, and prior to this, served as a credit trader at Crédit Agricole CIB from June 2015 to November 2018, focusing on EUR financial retail bonds, quotation on different platforms and hedging positions.  A spokesperson for Kepler Cheuvreux confirmed the appointment when approached by The TRADE. The new position follows further hires across Europe for the firm, with the appointment of Sam Dawson as high touch sales trader for Kepler Cheuvreux’s UK hedge funds client in June 2025.  The post Kepler Cheuvreux expands fixed income franchise with senior credit sales hire appeared first on The TRADE.

A small buy-side firm’s budget for the T+1 implementation is likely to start at $223,000, a report by Firebrand Research has revealed. Virginie O’SheaBy analysing North America’s settlement, the report emphasised key success factors to be learned and considered for European implementation, highlighting steps such as budgets and greater post-trade automation investment to ensure success in the transition to T+1 settlement. Additionally, the research, which was produced in collaboration with Clearstream, The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Euroclear, pointed to the complexity of Europe’s move to T+1, as a result of higher quantities of financial market infrastructures (FMIs), regulators, markets involved across the continent. Specifically, on average 83% of equity flow and 71% of fixed income flow from the firms interviewed goes through automated central trade matching, however issues surrounding mismatch associated with SSIs and place of settlement (PSET) require improved operational processes and automation.  The research also noted that accurate and detailed settlement data being shared at convenient and appropriate times would be important step for firms to take, to ensure a successful transition.  “While the report highlights operational issues and data inconsistencies as significant challenges, leveraging the lessons learned from other regions’ move to T+1 –particularly regarding automation and client engagement – will be instrumental in ensuring a smooth transition across European markets,” said Val Wotton, managing director and global head of equities solutions at DTCC. “Post-trade automation has proven to be a critical enabler of T+1 settlement, significantly reducing errors and operational costs. Therefore, it is imperative that firms allocate sufficient resources and budget to invest in advanced automation systems, including technology to support central matching and standing settlement instructions.” The research also revealed further key concerns for interviewees ahead of the move scheduled for 11 October 2027, including possible misalignment regarding foreign exchange and implementation across the UK, EU, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Virginie O’Shea, founder of Firebrand Research said: “The European move to T+1 is undoubtedly much more complex from a planning and implementation standpoint than the North American transition. Not only are there more currencies, market infrastructures, market participants and regulators involved, but there are also significantly different market practices to accommodate. “However, the research also shows that valuable lessons have been learned in previous moves to shorten the settlement cycle such as the benefits of early testing and strong governance.” The report was produced from interviews with operations and technology teams representing 45 firms from the asset management, custodian, bank and brokerage communities.  The post Even the smallest buy-side firms will have to spend a quarter of a million dollars on T+1 switch appeared first on The TRADE.

What advice would you give those looking to consolidate their transaction data?Begin with a thorough analysis of your scope and objectives. Clearly define the problems you’re trying to solve through data consolidation and what capabilities you want to establish. Consider whether you’re focusing on a single asset class like equities or expanding to cross-asset and derivatives, as this impacts the number of data sources and adds complexity to the data consolidation. Prioritise need-to-have versus nice-to-have capabilities, such as intraday updates for real-time decision-making versus one- or two-days delay in data if only used for quarterly assessments.Don’t underestimate the ongoing effort and cost of maintaining data pipelines and ensuring data quality. Budget accordingly, as internal management requires significant investment, especially with multiple data sources and pipelines. Consider leveraging external providers as this might be the easiest way to get going on a small budget but be aware that this may result in less control, oversight, and flexibility for future changes.Assess your team’s technical capabilities and resources. Consolidating transaction data often requires expertise in data engineering, database management, and analytics. If these skills are lacking internally, factor in the cost of hiring or training.How important is it to supplement this with third-party and other market data? What does this look like empirically?Supplementing transaction data with third-party and market data is crucial for comprehensive analysis and informed decision-making. Most firms have access to transaction cost analysis (TCA) of their data, as it’s challenging to benchmark transactions without market data. While request for quote (RFQ) protocols might allow for some analysis without additional market data due to their auction nature, generally, it’s difficult to be truly data-driven without external data sources.Empirically, we use external TCA providers to enrich our data across all available asset classes. This enhancement improves trading desk operations, interactions with portfolio managers, and broker relationships. Third-party peer data comparison services offer valuable relative performance insights and are only possible to obtain by using external providers. We’re also exploring execution-related data like indication of interests (IOI), particularly in the fixed income space, to get a feeling for the liquidity landscape before going in the market.The importance of additional data is evident in its impact on our decision-making process both pre- and post-trade. For instance, externally provided cost models and market data allows for more precise evaluation of execution quality, helping identify opportunities for improvement. Having a proper TCA solution available has helped us change the conversations we are having with our brokers. We have been able to steer the conversation more and improve performance this way.When it comes to maintaining a high quality of data, what should be front of mind?Data visibility is paramount – if no one is looking at the data, it’s likely to be incorrect. Our goal has been to democratise data, making it accessible to as many users as possible. This approach serves multiple purposes: it enables employees to explore data and enhance their data management skills, fosters data-driven decision-making, and improves data quality by identifying issues earlier and more frequently.Continuous monitoring of data pipelines and data state is essential to ensure completeness and accuracy. With multiple data providers and sources, fields inevitably contain noisy content. Balancing the number and types of quality checks is crucial – too many tests can lead to an overwhelming number of failures, so it’s important to prioritise and potentially only flag as failures when a certain fraction of data is impacted.While external systems and data providers often highlight data normalisation as a selling point, it’s important to thoroughly evaluate and test these claims. In our experience, we have found the normalisation provided by external sources to be lacking in some areas, often requiring additional in-house efforts to meet our specific needs. This consideration also supports using fewer providers and simpler data pipelines to reduce the overhead of data normalisation.Implementing a robust data governance framework is vital. This includes clear data ownership and well-defined data quality standards. Additionally, fostering a culture of data quality awareness across the organisation can significantly contribute to maintaining high-quality data, but in practice it’s difficult if not strictly enforced by the systems i.e. having a list of pre-defined options instead of free text fields.Are you an advocate of in-house solutions in this space, or an advocate of third-party providers?I generally advocate for a ‘buy before build’ approach, especially for services like transaction cost analysis data. The pre-trade and portfolio implementation spaces are generally where we see more benefit in developing bespoke solutions.However, we have found value in building internal data pipelines and data models to enhance quality, timeliness, and flexibility of our data. This approach allows us to tailor our data infrastructure to our specific needs and workflows. Moreover, by exposing our data internally to multiple teams, we achieve a level of convenience and integration that would be challenging if we relied solely on external providers’ platforms.The decision between in-house solutions and third-party providers often depends on factors such as the organisation’s size, available resources, and specific requirements. In-house solutions offer greater control and customisation but require significant investment in technology and expertise. Third-party providers can offer cost-effective, ready-to-use solutions but may lack the flexibility of custom-built systems.Our strategy involves a hybrid approach, leveraging third-party providers for standardised analyses and data sets while developing in-house capabilities for areas where we need more control or have unique requirements. This balanced approach allows us to benefit from external expertise while maintaining the ability to innovate and adapt quickly to our evolving needs, but it’s definitely not the cheapest approach.The post Buy-side must prioritise needs before wants when it comes to data appeared first on The TRADE.

While fallout from Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April and the market volatility which ensued caused industry chaos for some, proprietary trading firms prospered, new research by Acuiti and Avelacom has found.  According to the report, only 7% of proprietary trading firms experienced losses during the periods of volatility. These figures indicate that investments made by proprietary firms into risk management and trading strategies over the last 10 years have proved successful.  The report also pointed towards factors alongside market volatility, such as an increased interest in AI and similar technological investments, in driving a competitive advantage throughout the year.  Ross Lancaster, head of research at Acuiti said: “Proprietary trading firms perform a vital role to the market during times of volatility providing liquidity in times of market stress.”  “The volatility during early April put significant strain on the market but proprietary trading firms proved the value they add and performed well as a result.” Moreover, 65% of proprietary trading firms are expected to grow their headcount by hiring traders, software developers, network engineers and risk management positions, despite few reports of salary increases for the majority of roles over the past year.  Read more – Market volatility driving derivatives growth “We are seeing a variety of requirements from proprietary firms,” said Aleksey Larichev, chief executive of Avelacom. “While most continue to invest in low-latency strategies and the need to be the fastest, others are exploring alternative approaches, like risk-focused.” Despite the emphasis on risk management solutions, the report also found that only 19% of proprietary firms believe that pre-hedging during client order flow execution should be permitted.  Additionally, the general consensus of those surveyed emphasised that improved market maker schemes and a revision of capital requirements would make the biggest difference to increasing European market liquidity.  The post Proprietary trading firms thrive during tariff-led market volatility, report finds appeared first on The TRADE.

Siebert Williams Shank has appointed Anthony Santostefano as managing director, global equity sales trading. In the role, he will focus on global equities trading and multi asset market intelligence. Prior to this, Santostefano most recently served as senior vice president and lead international sales trader at Stern Brothers. Before that, he served as director of EMEA equities sales trading at Cabrera Capital Markets.  Previously in his career, he has served in a range of senior roles at firms including DWS Group, Natixis, Topeka Capital Markets, and Natixis.  New York-based Santostefano has particular expertise working with APAC markets across the equities sphere.   Speaking to The TRADE about his new role, Santostefano said: “I’m very excited to join SWS! I’m honoured to have such an opportunity to collaborate with this team of industry experts and veterans.  “I will continue to cover live APAC/EMEA market hours with my sales trading coverage, servicing our global institutional investment community by supporting clients in global equities trading and multi asset class market intelligence with my three decades of experience and expertise.” The post Stern Brothers’ lead international equities sales trader joins Siebert Williams Shank appeared first on The TRADE.

Ross Finlayson has joined Amundi as the firm’s new head of markets and product strategy within the ETF and indexing business.  In his new position, London-based Finlayson is set to help drive the growth of the business by leading a multidisciplinary team and assist in the commercialisation of Amundi’s ETF platform.  He joins from BlackRock, where he had been working since May 2013. His most recent position at the firm was as managing director, leading the iShares EMEA equity product strategy team. He has also held other positions at BlackRock. Read more – Amundi Technology partners with Murex to expand OTC derivatives capabilities Prior to this, he worked as a trader at Avalon Capital Markets, having begun his career at Lehman Brothers and Nomura, covering equity trading. The post Amundi names new head of markets and product strategy, ETF and indexing appeared first on The TRADE.

RBC Capital Markets has named Geoffroy Samarcq as its new head of multi asset quantitative investment strategy (QIS) structuring, effective July 2025.  The new role will see Samarcq managing the multi asset QIS structuring teams out of New York, as well as helping to drive RBC’s positioning in the expanding QIS sector.  His position will also cover the full value chain and all asset classes, and he is set to functionally report to Fabian DePrey, managing director, global head of US market sales. He will also report locally to Greg Hart, head of US global markets sales.  Speaking on the appointment, RBC said: “As we continue to hone multi-asset strengths to deliver strong client solutions, QIS is a strategic priority for us, and we are committed to investing in its growth.” Samarcq brings extensive experience across the QIS ecosystem to his new position, and previously held the title of managing director, head of US cross asset and global FICC strategic indices structuring at JP Morgan from October 2021.  Prior to this, he also worked at Bank of America Securities from June 2013 to October 2021, covering roles as global head of FICC QIS structuring and director of equity structuring. He started his career covering equities and hybrid structuring at Goldman Sachs.  The appointment follows further recent hires for RBC. In May 2025, Harry Williams joined the London team as a credit trader, following on from his previous role at MUFG as a senior European financials trader.  The post JP Morgan director joins RBC to expand the firm’s quantitative structuring appeared first on The TRADE.

Lloyds has partnered with BNP Paribas to offer its clients access to the bank’s foreign exchange execution algorithms.Asif RazaqThe partnership is set to offer FX algo capabilities to Lloyds’ corporate and financial institution clients to allow for more efficient FX trade execution, supported by BNP Paribas’ solutions.  The firms said that this will be done while retaining transparency and control through “robust” TCA. Asif Razaq, global head of FX automated client execution at BNP Paribas, said that the firm is “actively expanding [its] footprint using exclusive offerings in target markets as we continue to develop and refine our platform”.  The use of execution algorithms in FX are on the up across the buy-side, allowing firms to hedge large exposures and provide detailed analytics to support trading decisions.  Through the move, Lloyds’ clients are set to gain access to the full algo technology stack from BNP Paribas, including flexible execution strategies which can be adapted to strategies based on risk appetite.Features include limit pricing, start/stop times, and the ability for clients to amend, pause, resume, or cancel orders mid-execution. Rob Hale, head of financial markets at Lloyds, said: “This partnership marks a significant milestone in our commitment to continually invest in enhancing our clients’ experience. As FX market and risk dynamics shift, integrating algorithmic execution technology into our Lloyds platform ensures we continue to offer market leading FX solutions to meet the needs of our clients.”The post BNP Paribas and Lloyds partner on new FX algorithmic execution offering appeared first on The TRADE.

Jefferies Vivian Li has joined Jefferies as head of Asia distressed trading and credit analytics, in a push to bolster the firm’s fixed income offering, The TRADE can reveal.   Li will be based out of Hong Kong and brings over a decade of industry experience to her new position, with expertise covering sovereign, investment grade and high yield corporate credit and financials.   She joins from Morgan Stanley, where she served as head of Asia credit analytics and head of China financing from November 2018 to May 2025.   Prior to this, she has also worked at China Merchants Securities, covering roles including fixed income portfolio manager, and credit analyst.   Jefferies confirmed the appointment in an announcement on social media.   Cboe Dave Howson is set to step down from his role as executive vice president and global president of Cboe Global Markets, effective 1 August 2025.  The move sees Howson returning to the UK after serving three years in the role, based in Chicago. Howson joined Cboe in 2017 following its acquisition of Bats, where he served as European chief operating officer since 2013.    He became Cboe’s European president in January 2020, and took on additional responsibility for Asia Pacific in June 2021. In 2022, he relocated to Chicago to take on his current role as global president, overseeing Cboe’s global business lines including equities, derivatives and data.  The departure will see Cathy Clay, executive vice president and global head of derivatives widen her role to provide oversight of the Cboe data vantage business, alongside her current responsibilities covering the global derivatives business of equity and index options and futures.  Similarly, Chris Isaacson, who currently oversees technology, operations and risk in his position as executive vice president and chief operating officer, will expand his role to include coverage of cash equities, global FX and clearing.    The new expansions build on Clay’s extensive industry experience and time at Cboe, which she joined in August 2015, and played a foundational role in the early development of the Cboe data vantage business.  Isaacson joined Cboe as chief information officer in March 2017 before stepping up to the role of chief operating officer in January 2019. He has also held the role of global chief information officer at BATS Global Markets.  Howson’s departure will also see recently appointed Cboe chief executive, Craig Donohue assuming the title of president.   Speaking on his departure and the new expansions, Howson said: “As I step away, I do so with immense pride in what we have achieved together. Cathy and Chris are strong leaders and I have the utmost confidence that Cboe is well-positioned for continued success.”  Societe Generale Jonathan Connor has joined Societe Generale as director, euro investment grade (EUR IG) corporates trader.    London-based Connor joins the firm from HSBC, where he had been working for nearly 14 years. He brings extensive industry experience to the role, with expertise in the EUR IG trading space. Most recently, he held the position of EUR IG corporates trader at HSBC.   Previously, Connor has also worked in CHF bond trading as well as having served in roles as a EUR IG financials trader and global macro strategies trader.    Connor confirmed his new position in a social media announcement.  The post People Moves Monday: Jefferies, Cboe and Societe Generale appeared first on The TRADE.

BMLL Technologies and Wamid, the technology and innovation arm of Saudi Tadawul Group (STG), have agreed a multi-year strategic partnership which will see the firms launch a suite of tools tailored for the Saudi market.Speaking to The TRADE, Paul Humphrey, chief executive, BMLL, said: “We’re thrilled with our latest partnership, which has come as a direct result the sophistication of what we’ve built around the world, working with the largest exchanges, sell-side and buy-side firms.“We’re leveraging all of that expertise to deliver in this new region […] Both Wamid and ourselves are very excited about the prospects for our partnership. We’re both incentivised on both sides to grow – every good partnership has a win-win strategy and that’s what we have here”.Specifically, the move will offer the market white-labelled cloud analytics tools – aimed at institutional investors, quants and analysts, the first of its kind for the Saudi market.Read more – BMLL and Exegy partner on unified data stream“Our mission at BMLL is to democratise access to the most sophisticated market data and analytics of the highest quality, enabling firms to make better-informed decisions. This partnership is a testament to the trust global institutions place in our data and analytics solutions,” added Humphrey in an official statement.Through the partnership, users will be able to access deep historical order book data and run advanced models in a Python-native environment.In 2024, Optiver and CTC Venture Capital became the latest investors in BMLL, joining an investor base which includes: Nasdaq Ventures, FactSet, IQ Capital’s Growth Fund and Snowflake Ventures.Looking ahead, Humphrey tells The TRADE that BMLL will soon add to its UK and US presence and look to form an APAC base in the near future as its partnerships and client penetration across both Asia and the Middle East ramp up.He explains: “Historical data has for too long been the exhaust of the market data industry. It’s not an area that’s been invested into by the large market data companies because so far, real time and pre-trade has been more interesting.“However, in the world we’re living in today, you can not have poor quality historical data. The only alternative for firms as they become more sophisticated is to build this product out themselves, because they don’t trust anyone else to do it. But they trust BMLL and many are building their quant strategies on top of our data.”The post BMLL and Saudi Tadawul Group partner on launch of cloud-based analytics tools appeared first on The TRADE.

Kepler Cheuvreux has named Sam Dawson as a high touch sales trader for its UK hedge funds client as it looks toround out its expansion in the region. Dawson is set to focus on the continued expansion and development of Kepler’s execution strategy across the UK. He will begin his new role in September and be based in London.  Kepler’s team is currently based out of 14 locations across Europe, the US, and the Middle East, including: Amsterdam, Dubai, Frankfurt, Geneva, London, Madrid, New York, Paris, Stockholm, and Zurich. Earlier this year, Kepler Cheuvreux and Unigestion unveiled its plans for a joint €3 billion asset manager. The company – Kepler Cheuvreux Unigestion Equities – is set to specialise in quantitative strategies for public equities. As part of the move, Kepler Cheuvreux is contributing a sales force of over 130 professionals and more than 1,300 institutional clients across Europe, North America, and MENA. The post Kepler Cheuvreux appoints high touch sales trader appeared first on The TRADE.

Bloomberg has expanded its High-Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) solution to cover the Middle East, as a growing number of banks push to increase their presence in the region.  The introduction of the offering is set to allow financial institutions in the region to monitor liquidity requirements which align with the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) rulebook and the Qatar Central Bank’s prudential regulations and local rules.  The expansion will also provide clients in the Middle East with a Basel III regulatory data solution by offering a set of data points to enable compliance with the regulation’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) requirements and regulatory reporting.  “As international banks expand into the Middle East, they are looking to Bloomberg as their trusted regulatory data partner to establish strong compliance processes with the local regulatory regime,” said Leila Sadiq, global head of enterprise data content at Bloomberg.  “With this expansion, Bloomberg brings our robust HQLA data set and best in class reference data to Middle East jurisdictions to help all financial institutions including local banks, hedge funds and private banks in addition to international banks meet local liquidity and regulatory requirements.” The offering will provide clients in the region with access to data points, made up of four main data sets, to calculate standardised credit risk capital requirements. The sets include HQLA classification, 30-day stress period price drop metrics, liquid and readily marketable and central bank eligibility. Moreover, the move means that 12 jurisdictions are now covered by Bloomberg’s HQLA solution.  The expansion follows significant developments for Bloomberg over the past few weeks, with the inclusion of US treasuries on market on close list trading, as well as the expansion of its Instant Bloomberg (IB) chatbot solution with an add-on service.  The post Bloomberg extends HQLA solution to cover the Middle East appeared first on The TRADE.

TP ICAP has acquired Neptune Networks as part the firm looks to create a new dealer-to-client credit business. Nicolas BreteauThe move will see the firm combining and enhancing Neptune’s proprietary data network, which provides real-time pre-trade bond market data from sell-and buy-side clients, with Liquidnet’s electronic credit trading platform.  Nicolas Breteau, chief executive of the TP ICAP Group said: “By combining Liquidnet’s extensive client reach with leading liquidity providers, we can seamlessly and discreetly connect the sell-side and buy-side to unlock exciting potential, positioning us well to drive a step-change in fixed income markets and liquidity.” Read more – Fireside Friday with… TP ICAP’s Max Spoto Neptune is co-owned by a consortium of investment banks, and upon close of the deal, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, ING, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS will hold a 30% stake in the new business.  “At JP Morgan, we are committed to promoting market competition and increasing liquidity, while also backing innovative initiatives like this one that enhance market efficiency,” said Nick Adragna, co-head of global investment grade and macro credit trading at JP Morgan. “The strategic integration of the Neptune and Liquidnet Credit complementary offerings is poised to improve competition and liquidity while delivering increased choice and improved value to both the buy side and the sell side.” The combined ownership is expected to provide incentivisation to help the business grow and enhance buy-side connections, according to the firms. Peter Rafferty, global head of secondary credit at BNP Paribas said: “Bringing together Neptune and Liquidnet marks a significant step in the evolution of the credit markets. As a supporter of innovation and market digitalisation, BNP Paribas welcomes the combination of these two platforms to deliver a more connected, efficient, and data driven ecosystem for institutional credit clients.” In March 2025, TP ICAP added Singapore-based digital asset platform Coinhako as a trading counterpart to its FCA registered wholesale spot cryptoasset exchange, Fusion Digital Assets to facilitate risk exchange and increase liquidity.  Prior to this, the firm also entered an agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in December 2024 to streamline and scale TP ICAP’s technology infrastructure. The post TP ICAP creates new dealer-to-client credit business with acquisition of Neptune appeared first on The TRADE.

Jonathan Connor has joined Societe Generale as director, euro investment grade (EUR IG) corporates trader.  London-based Connor joins the firm from HSBC, where he had been working for nearly 14 years. He brings extensive industry experience to the role, with expertise in the EUR IG trading space. Most recently, he held the position of EUR IG corporates trader at HSBC. Previously, Connor has also worked in CHF bond trading as well as having served in roles as a EUR IG financials trader and global macro strategies trader.  Connor confirmed his new position in a social media announcement. The new hire follows a string of appointments for Societe Generale in recent months. In December 2024, the firm made three new appointments to its global markets team in a bid to enhance its fixed income and equities offerings.  A spokesperson for Societe Generale confirmed the appointment when approached by The TRADE. The post HSBC trader joins Societe Generale appeared first on The TRADE.

UBS Asset Management has agreed to sell its single manager hedge fund, private credit and commodities platform, O’Connor to Cantor Fitzgerald.  Aleksandar IvanovicThe move will see O’Connor’s investment and support teams transferring to Cantor Fitzgerald’s Asset Management (CFAM) division upon closing. Moreover, the sale will also see O’Connor’s six investment strategies coming under Cantor Fitzgerald’s platform, which equate to approximately $11 billion in assets under management.  “Our priority has been to select a buyer with complementary capabilities, culture and team, and we believe that Cantor Fitzgerald is strongly placed to take the O’Connor business forward,” said Aleksandar Ivanovic, president of UBS Asset Management.  “In deciding to sell O’Connor, we considered a number of factors, including its strategic fit and growth potential within UBS, and have been guided by the best interests of investors.” The firm has said that it will work closely with Cantor Fitzgerald to ensure a smooth transition for its clients, with a long-term commercial arrangement set to be established between the two firms from the move.  Bill Ferri, global head of Cantor Fitzgerald Asset Management, said: “Acquiring the O’Connor business is a transformational opportunity for CFAM to deliver world-class hedge fund, private credit, and commodities investments to clients globally.  “We believe our knowledge of and experience with O’Connor uniquely positions us to grow this business, focusing on attracting and retaining investment talent, investing in a flexible, unconstrained operating platform, and delivering attractive risk adjusted outcomes and best-in-class client service.” The transaction is expected to close in Q4 2025, subject to regulatory approvals and closing conditions.  The sale follows similar developments for UBS, which in March made a shock exit from the outsourced trading game. In May, Clear Street announced that it had hired UBS’ former outsourced trading expert, Morgan Ralph, to lead the firm’s newly launched outsourced trading platform.  The post O’Connor investment team to transfer to Cantor Fitzgerald AM following UBS offload appeared first on The TRADE.

How have you seen the options and more widely, the options market, react to recent market volatility?  The equity options market is doing very well. This growth accelerated at the beginning of the year, but even before “liberation day” there was a lot of volatility at the single name level. It creates a lot of opportunity for options traders. People are actively trading, they close and reopen positions. They exercise their rights to buy and sell.  Our markets are different sizes and when you add up in total we’re up 24% in growth. In Italy, we are up 43%. In France, up 15%, Amsterdam up 24%. It’s very active. There are a lot of things happening aside from “liberation day”. There is also a reallocation of assets. A lot of investors are looking for a way into Europe. European companies were most certainly undervalued before because the focus has always been on the US.  What is doing really well is the index options. In France, on the top of what’s happening with Mr. Trump there is a lot of political context which has been quite unstable since June last year and so the CAC 40 index option is up 27%.  People talk about fragmentation in Europe. Our market is growing and our investors are very different. I don’t think it’s a good thing to always compare the US and Europe, especially when you talk retail. The US investor doesn’t have a pension. He has to be active on the market. He’s naturally going to be looking into financial markets to find solutions to have a sustainable future.  You’re planning to launch the fixed income derivatives later this year, what’s the driver behind that?  We’re launching in September. All this has been made possible thanks to the acquisition of Borsa Italiana, now Euronext Clearing. Thanks to that we can look into other asset classes which was not possible in the past. The second thing is that we have acquired two cash bonds markets, including MTS which is the institutional cash bond market. We really wanted to diversify on our side.  The fixed income offering is going to be for retail to initiate the liquidity. They invest very highly in the cash bonds market but it’s not at all a retail story. We received a lot of very positive feedback from the large asset managers. Whether you are a smaller investment firm or a very large investment firm, the problem is to reach the institutional size contract which are available at our competitors, they need to pile up the interest.   They need to reach to a certain size before they can send the order. With our contracts they will be able to trade straight away. We need retail to initiate liquidity because when you build a derivative the complexity is to find an end client flow. It’s never going to be market makers helping you to build this liquidity.  That’s super tough when you go to the traditional buy-side because they have liquidity thresholds and they cannot trade if there’s not a minimum level of ADV or a certain amount of open interest. It’s quite frustrating because when you develop a product that clients want, you need a flow to start with. This is why it’s amazing that we have this retail appetite because it’s a two-step process. We aim to initiate liquidity with retail so we can make it a success story with the buy-side firms across Europe.  What trends are you seeing in the derivatives trading venue competitive landscape? Europe is a very highly competitive market. The challenge is that a derivatives exchange is an aggregation of products. It’s a lot of products altogether which can respond to each other so that you can get offsets at the clearing level.  It’s complicated to make it appealing, especially to institutional investors who are managing large pools of liquidity and who have capital immobilised and we need to make efficiencies. We have a very strong competition on single derivatives.  How are you seeing institutional investors use derivatives differently and how might this evolve? What we have seen recently is the development of new contracts like the total return features. It’s a contract which can place a repo curve or offer banks exposure to hedge structured products. We are definitely seeing more and more buy-side present on these contracts. Historically, it’s been mainly hedge funds but now, we are starting to see more multi-asset managers from more traditional houses participating in this contract. Maybe this could one day replace the standard benchmark features. It’s a contract which allows you to trade for instance the CAC 14 including the dividend risk and interest rates. The post Fireside Friday with… Euronext’s Charlotte Alliot appeared first on The TRADE.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has joined UK clearinghouse LCH CDSClear as a clearing member.The bank joins CDSClear as a market maker in both European and US indices. LCH CDSClear expanded its client clearing services to US credit derivatives participants in 2024.This latest development follows on from RBC and its Channel Islands subsidiary joining LCH RepoClear as clearing members in 2020, with the move at the time offering RBC additional financing liquidity to support its European client activity. Santosh Sateesh, global head of credit derivatives trading, RBC said: “We are proud to be a part of the growing service at LCH CDSClear, with capability to clear a wide range of credit derivative products while achieving significant risk management efficiencies. This move demonstrates our commitment to our clients across the globe.”LCH CDSClear has extended its product offering to include APAC and emerging market indices and their single names in recent years, as well as sovereign single names.It also now includes clearing for iTraxx Australia indices and their single name constituents.Marcus Robinson, head of CDSClear and DigitalAssetClear at LCH, said: “We are committed to increasing the level of choice market participants have in CDS clearing and are proud to offer an international clearing member such as RBC access to our broad range of CDS products and access to trade with members and clients across the globe.”The post RBC joins LCH CDSClear as clearing member appeared first on The TRADE.

Bloomberg has expanded its market on close (MOC) list trading offering to include US treasuries, following on from the launch of MOC for European government bonds. The expansion is set to allow investors to automatically get into or out of a market at closing point, avoiding the need to manually place order immediately as the market closes.  The new offering will address challenges associated with tracking error and will provide certainty of execution by referencing a specific close time, through the use of Bloomberg’s Evaluated Pricing Service (BVAL) as the closing price. The first trade referencing BVAL as the closing price was executed by BMO Capital Markets and Schwab Asset Management, both of whom also played a key role in developing the new tool, according to Bloomberg. Christopher Johnson, global head of trading at Schwab Asset Management said: “Now live, we leverage the tool to help lock in benchmark-relative pricing, scale our team, reduce risk and limit tracking error in our index portfolios.” Nine dealers are currently supporting the new workflow, with further liquidity providers expected to join in 2025. “The functionality helps to minimise market impact, reduce slippage and increases certainty of execution, which are especially important during volatile markets,” said Trevor Mallinson, global head of rates product at Bloomberg.  “This is an exciting enhancement for clients trading government bonds, as it helps ensure pricing certainty and access to liquidity and highlights our focus on continuing to invest in our electronic trading solutions.” Bloomberg has also highlighted further enhancements offered by the new solution. Through the offering, clients will be able to negotiate non-comp trades or send in-comp trades to at least five dealers and use Bloomberg’s integrated axe data, analytics and communication tools to identify the optimal liquidity provider.  Additionally, participants will have the option to negotiate and transact electronically using an end of day snapshot, through the functionality of Bloomberg’s Portfolio Trading Basket Builder (PTBB) tool.  The move follows a growth in expansion for the firm in recent months. In May 2025, Bloomberg expanded its Instant Bloomberg (IB) chatbot solution with an add-on service, to allow Bloomberg Anywhere users to interact with multiple firms by bringing in-house proprietary bots to IB chat rooms. Moreover, earlier in the month the firm also extended its Intraday BVAL (IBVAL) front-office pricing solution to cover emerging market bonds, as part of a push to provide enhanced pricing transparency.  The post Bloomberg includes US treasuries on market on close list trading appeared first on The TRADE.

Hidden Road has launched digital asset swap capabilities for the US, expanding its suite of prime brokerage solutions.Michael HigginsThe firm is also set to offer various cross-margining and financing services in digital assets as a result of this update.Specifically, the OTC swaps offering is available from the Group’s FCA-regulated entity, Hidden Road Partners CIV UK.“The United States digital asset market has long been under-served from a product standpoint,” said Michael Higgins, international chief executive and global head of corporate development for Hidden Road.“While OTC swaps represent a significant portion of digital asset trading volumes globally, until now, they were largely unavailable to US institutions. With the launch of our swap prime brokerage capabilities for the United States market, we can provide clients with access to an expanded range of products and solutions.”Earlier this year in April, Hidden Road confirmed that it was set to be acquired by Ripple in a $1.25 billion deal.Through the move, Hidden Road is set to “exponentially’ expand its capacity, becoming one of the largest non-bank prime brokers globally.The deal is expected to close later in 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.The post Hidden Road unveils digital asset swaps prime brokerage offering for the US appeared first on The TRADE.