What's Next for Option Markets? A CFTC regulated platform for bitcoin options; NY-based firm gets approval to trade puts and calls on cryptocurrency. For bitcoin aficionados, the road to legitimacy has been pockmarked with obstacles and detractors, including those who have insisted that bitcoins are the currency of money launders,…Read More

In a July 18 NYT op-ed piece "Wall Street Profits by Putting Investors in the Slow Lane" submitted by Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law School and David Swensen, the chief investment officer of Yale University, the spirit debate topic of payment-for-order-flow schemes, aka rebates paid by the various stock exchanges to…Read More

Well Matilda, as if the universe of corporate bond electronic trading platforms isn't crowded enough, despite clear signs of consolidation taking place for this still nascent stage industry (e.g. upstart Trumid's recent acquisition of infant-stage Electronifie) , one more corporate bond e-trading platform has its cr0ss-hairs on the US market.…Read More

High-Touch or High-Tech? That is The Question.. Virtually any industry professional will acknowledge the now two-decade evolution of financial markets whereby the electronification of equity, options, currency and even fixed income markets has been the primary catapult for business models wrapped in high-tech trading services, trading software applications and niche offerings…Read More

The notoriously fragmented universe of upstart electronic bond trading platforms that aim to address "the lack of liquidity" concerns voiced by institutional fund managers and deliver e-bond trading tools that enhance transparency and make trading fixed income products easier for buysiders is starting to consolidate. This week Trumid, founded in 2014 and…Read More

And The Winner Is….Institutional Investor Presents 2017 Top 40 Trading Tech Top Guns Who says trading technology wonks are under-appreciated within the context of recognition by industry followers? Certainly not MarketsMuse fintech curators, and definitely not Institutional Investor Magazine, which brings us their annual ranking of the top trading technologists…Read More

(FinanceMagnate)--Electronic trading firm Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR) aka “IB”has announced its plans to put an end to its options market making activities globally. The operations, which are conducted through the Timber Hill companies, are expected to be phased out over the coming months. The broker will continue carrying out…Read More

Those of us who have worked in and/or around the world of electronic trading for more than 15 minutes readily know about REDI, the ubiquitous direct access execution platform for stocks and options that was introduced by Spear Leeds & Kellogg in 1987 to its professional clearing customers, a universe…Read More

OTC Pink Sheet Companies Need Rehab....With the stock markets percolating, book-runners across ECM syndicate desks are hopeful the backlog of pending IPOs will finally open. With that, a broad universe of Issuers are finding their way to OTC Markets and NASDAQ's OTC Pink Tier. All good news, other than for…Read More

According to MarketsMuse market structure mavens, if you can say "dis-intermediate" five times in under 5 seconds, or if you can simply spell the word (without looking at this blog post), then "you'll get the joke" i.e. exchange operator Bats Global Markets (acquired last year by CBOE for $3.2bil) is…Read More

Fintech Fixed Income Trading & Fragmentation-What's Next? A Venue for Private Placement Bonds & MTNs Despite the seeming oversupply of electronic bond trading initiatives, the convergence of fintech and fixed income trading continues to spawn new electronic trading start-ups, bringing the total industry count to 128 venues.  The latest player,…Read More

Latest Chinese Fintech FOF Completes Raise of 10-billion-yuan (US $1.8b) as Asia fintech funding continues to eclipse North America and EU allocation to financial technology initiatives.. (Econotimes.com) 28 December 2016- In a move to advance China as a financial and technology hub, Asia FinTech FOF, a foundation that aims to…Read More

Identifying the top fintech financiers is no easy task these days. It seems like only yesterday when MarketsMuse curators were among the first to advance the phrase "fintech" in the course of profiling startups seeking to disrupt the financial services sect, many of which have been led by sell-side veterans who…Read More

For exchange-based specialists, prop floor traders and upstairs sell-side market-makers, the notion of buy-side traders putting on the hat of risk-taking market-making is a head scratcher. Sure, there's a cadre of hedge fund wonks who have interned on a sell-side trading desk, then moved up to Greenwich to grab a…Read More

Nobody can accuse veteran government bond market broker and fintech poster boy David Rutter of being single-minded. The former Prebon Yamane exec, who later migrated to inter-dealer broker ICAP where he became of head of electronic trading, then did a stint as CEO of fixed income and FX platform BrokerTec,…Read More

FinTech Fever is spreading across the globe, as government-sponsored and regional private equity investments in financial technology startups and fast-growing initiatives is becoming the cool kid place-to-be. MarketsMuse fintech curators profile a crisp selection of this week's latest stories out of London, Abu Dhabi, Jakarta, India and Russia.. Abu Dhabi…Read More

The FinTech Sector is red hot now in Japan as Land of Rising Sun Banks now looking to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into fintech start-ups after the abolition of a law that prevented them from owning more than 5 per cent of a technology company. (FT) 25 September…Read More

Reuters execs say "Why build an expensive EMS platform to integrate with your buy-side focused analytics platform when you can buy one that already has captive customers?" If it's the right price, then the answer  would seem to favor Buy v Build! That is apparently the calculus of market data…Read More