Business success depends on seeing the right information in the right context to take effective action, and nowhere is this more true than in the control of pre-trade risk. Clearly there have to be tight boundaries, but it is equally important that these boundaries are defined in such a way that they do not unnecessarily restrict the activities of trading desks or their clients for DMA, algorithmic trading or care order services.

Multi-Asset and Multi-Currency Risk Management

GL TRADE has developed a comprehensive pre-trade risk management architecture via GL Selector, designed to optimize your ability to manage and make full use of available trading limits. GL Selector allows a particularly fine control of limits on a variety of dimensions and levels - market, department, desk and individual trader or client - and offers full multi-asset and multi-currency capability.

Market-specific parameters enable compliance with the regulatory requirements of all supported markets.

All information is consolidated in one screen, so that every user - broker, proprietary trader or buy-side client - is able to assess current overall positions at a glance. Global and detailed position information is available as appropriate and required.

In the derivatives markets, where margin calculations in full detail are not possible in real time for high-volume trading operations, two-stage calculations can be performed - a quick and cautious pre-trade calculation, followed by the ‘pass back’ of additional available margin from mid-office systems where the full calculation is carried out. Similarly, risk limits distributed across different markets can be used in support of one another.

Direct Market Access opens a wide range of options to Buy Side institutions to increase the value delivered by their in-house trading desks. Access to multiple markets’ data, aggregated liquidity, program trading tools, transaction cost research and broker algorithms means that the buy-side trader who wishes to do so can take full control of the quest for best execution. Investment houses are moving in this direction, away from the traditional approach of sending care orders to their brokers, and are increasingly developing their trading skills and maturity.

GL EMS^TM - GL Execution Management System - is the GL TRADE solution for Buy Side trading desks. From traditional portfolio management to more alternative investment styles, GL EMS^TM addresses the needs of sophisticated Buy Side traders with its broad range of advanced execution tools to trade all types of listed securities, on any market.

Building on GL TRADE’s proven expertise in DMA, order management and market connectivity, GL EMS^TM unlocks value at the Buy Side desk and contributes significantly to fund performance.

GL EMS^TM covers the complete workflow of the Trading Desk:

• Flexible Blotter for List Trading
  Organize your lists using a set of filters. Slice them into smaller lists to meet specific trading objectives.
• Pre- & Post-Trade Analytics
  Extensive TCR* analytical capabilities are provided in GL EMS^TM: Market Impact simulation according to a large choice of parameters, real-time Implementation Shortfall calculation, etc.
• DMA & Program Trading Tools
  • DMA, EDA, plus access to broker algorithms can be configured across multiple brokers
  • 13 pre-programmed execution tactics are provided
  • The GL Combo Trader window enables Spread/Pairs trading and the creation of User Defined Instruments
  • You can use Waving & Scheduling for slicing baskets or single orders, thus minimizing market impact.
• 360° Market View
  GL EMS^TM provides a single and consolidated view of trading activity: you can sort instruments by market and by broker, and the real-time status of executions is available for parent and child orders.
• GL EMS^TM facilitates Best Execution
  • You can export detailed execution data and performance benchmarks
  • Select brokers and set up connections easily - GL NET is a broker-neutral routing network for access via 300 sell-side counterparties to over 120 markets and liquidity pools.

(*): Transaction Cost Research

The rapid growth in electronic trading at the broker-to-exchange level that occurred during the 1990s was closely followed by the rise of Direct Market Access for buy-side institutions. The growth of DMA trading continues, driven by increasing sophistication of buy-side trading organizations and the range of tools and techniques at their disposal. DMA is also relevant for sell-side brokerages who wish to broaden their range of client services to include trading on international exchanges, without taking on the overhead costs of membership and connectivity to each exchange.

GL NET, the world’s largest DMA community
GL TRADE has been at the forefront of the DMA phenomenon from the beginning, with the launch of the GL NET network in 1995. GL NET has grown continuously in scope and capacity since that time, and today links the world’s largest DMA community of over 700 financial institutions, with 300 brokerage organizations offering services for trading across almost all of the world’s electronic markets, in all asset classes, including major ECNs and Dark Pools. You can also access the algorithmic trading suites of several major brokers via the network.

GL NET’s 30+ connectivity hubs, with high-performance, resilient interconnections, also support low-latency market data delivery from over 100 global markets. We continue to expand the network to cover significant emerging electronic markets at early stages, often working closely with the exchanges and contributing directly to their international business development.

GL NET: Global Topology

Click on diagram to expand

FIX Connectivity
Many users of GL NET services use GL TRADE’s trading workstations, but connectivity via FIX messaging is also widely used: FIX Access Points interconnect with other major order routing networks as well as directly with individual trading houses.

BondOne Connect, Fixed Income Order Routing
Our connectivity services have been extended to the Fixed Income community thanks to our BondOne Connect offering. Widely used in the US, our order routing network allows you to interconnect with the fixed income community including the top five players.

Alternative investment management
Alternative investments are today an essential tool in risk diversification and efficient portfolio management and potentially a good source of alpha. They are likely to form an integral part of your investment process, whether you are an institutional asset manger, hedge fund or proprietary trading organization.

Management and control of these products requires specialist knowledge, workflows, datasets and systems that provide institutional and regulatory transparency. The tools you use must be flexible to cater for the evolution of products coming to the market, adaptable to extend your proprietary processes and integrated to data points and execution venues.

If this product area is new to your organization or pre-existing, then it is essential the tools you use provide enterprise-wide risk and operational controls.

Tracker, the best of breed solution
Alternative investment management is not new to GL TRADE: we have been providing tools to our clients for many years in execution, risk management, middle and back office control.

To complete the life cycle of the alternative investment management process, Tracker is now available to support the decision-making process and order creation for Structured Products, Funds of Hedge Funds and many varieties of alternative investment management required by the buy side.

We believe in the growth of this business area with further extension of the functionality around liquidity, manager screening and enhanced integration to execution venues and data repositories.

Tracker is the best of breed product for your alternative investment management.

In today’s rapidly changing capital markets environment, you are facing more challenges than ever before. Increasing competition, decreasing margins and the demand for greater efficiency have forced your business to re-examine its business processes & revamp the IT infrastructure to seek technology solutions that provide full treasury management functions across a wide array of asset classes in a centralized STP model.

We lead the industry in providing complete, proven, real-time treasury solutions for front-to-back and the  functionality across a wide variety of instruments for multi-entity operations.

Sierra Treasury
Our Sierra Treasury solution allows you to improve operational efficiency by automating the transaction flow and seamlessly connecting business processes with both internal and external systems.

We provide you with the ability to respond to market conditions quickly with sophisticated strategies involving multiple asset classes.

With Sierra Treasury you have access to a fully integrated risk management throughout the system, to monitor and manage your credit, market and operational risk exposure.

We help you reduce operational costs with a single STP solution that eliminates the use of multiple systems and removes the need to reconcile front and back office systems, thanks to our single database architecture.

New trading venues, complex and structured instruments, alternative investment styles and regulatory constraints are challenging current business processes.

As a buy-side player, your needs for integrated and comprehensive front-to-back solutions are growing:  flexibility in your cross-asset investment processes, high performance connectivity with your brokers and automation of all your trading processes.

As a sell-side institution, you want to provide your customers with solutions that match their profiles from  low-latency connectivity, easy-to-deploy and customized trading workstations, to fast and secure accesses to all new liquidity pools whatever the asset class.

As a founder of the electronic trading community with our GL NET network, more than 600 financial institutions trust us every day to make the links between the buy-side and the sell-side worlds. Since 1995, the year we launched our low-latency order routing network, our offer has evolved to cover the entire order flow for all asset classes, listed and OTC.

From a turnkey cross-asset solution for treasury or portfolio management to advanced execution management and order routing systems, we bring you the best of our trading expertise to handle higher volumes, new listed and structured instruments, to meet STP challenges.