Order Management and Trade Execution Solutions for the trading communityThose institutions that survive and prosper in today's financial environment will be the ones that can more quickly manage higher data volumes, more easily address greater data complexity, and more productively execute challenging data analysis. All of these challenges in data and analytics management drive the need for greater computing power and information insight within asset management firms. With a focus on order management and trade execution, Microsoft and its broad range of partners provide investment institutions with the software capabilities needed to implement the scalable, low-latency, cost-effective trading solutions they need to maintain their competitive edge in a volatile market. Learn how Microsoft-based Order Management and Trade Execution solutions help support smart and cost-effective order routing and trading strategies: Manage the increasing volume of data and the low latency of transaction speeds with scalable solutions| Business challenges | Solutions and benefits |
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Market data volumes are ever increasing. Algorithmic trading is becoming more prevalent on the buy side and across more asset classes, not just equities. Analysts even produce reports that discuss how valuable a millisecond is in terms of trade execution speeds. This environment places tremendous pressure on investment firms to continue to make fast, intelligent trading decisions at ever lower costs per transaction. | Asset managers need to implement trading platforms that have the ability to scale quickly in response to sometimes wild market volatility. They need to deploy trading solutions that are flexible enough to leverage algorithmic trading and support multicurrency and multiasset classes. Doing so will position asset managers to react quickly to the changing demands of investors looking for higher returns. It will also allow them to achieve cost-effective trade execution, which will impact overall investment returns for clients. |
Supporting technology: Using Excel Services, an Excel spreadsheet can be deployed to a server as an HTML Web application inside a Web browser, rather than stored on a user desktop. When combined with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Excel Services provides the means to collaboratively share a spreadsheet with team members. Microsoft HPC Server 2008 easily scales to meet a financial services institution's needs, now and in the future. Windows HPC-based solutions can be deployed, managed, and extended using familiar tools and technologies. Numerous software vendors have designed their applications to work seamlessly with Windows HPC Server 2008, enabling users to submit and monitor jobs from within familiar applications without having to learn new or complex user interfaces. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) improves data visualization and allows users to view data in innovative new ways. To extend the reach of WPF to non-Windows-based environments, developers can use Silverlight, which is a cross-browser, cross-platform application. These technologies allow the creation of breathtaking new trading applications.
Manage complex decision processes| Business challenges | Solutions and benefits |
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The increase in new liquidity venues, such as ECNs, ATSs, and Dark Pools, is creating new and more complex trading environments. These changes in market structure are driving down transaction costs but also keeping more liquidity hidden, which makes best execution that much more difficult to achieve. Investment firms need intelligent liquidity analysis and execution systems in place to achieve cost-effective trading for their investors. | Investment firms need to put in place more sophisticated liquidity discovery, trade order routing, and trade capture systems, because increasingly automated trading not only allows firms to execute trades more quickly and cost-effectively but also helps them improve their compliance. Rather than doing a complete system redesign, adopting a Service-Oriented Architecture can leverage existing capabilities and systems and then speed new application delivery.
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Supporting technology: Analysts can use Excel 2007 to perform complex what-if scenarios. Windows HPC Server provides a cost-effective solution that helps firms run simulation models on complex financial portfolios and trading scenarios. Microsoft business intelligence offers a complete, fully integrated set of technologies that can help reduce the complexity of organizing and distributing information and enable better business decisions-all in a single, integrated platform. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 supports the rapid development of enterprise-class business applications that give financial users a critical competitive advantage and delivers rich data analysis and data-mining capabilities that integrate with familiar applications, such as Microsoft Office. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services offers a comprehensive, server-based solution that includes traditional managed reports, interactive reports, and embedded reports. For firms with disparate systems running on different platforms, Microsoft BizTalk Server provides the infrastructure to help financial institutions connect systems within and between organizations, regardless of the platform. Using BizTalk Server, firms can get more out of their current investments and minimize the cost of integrating new technology.
Reduce regulatory compliance complexity with a single, flexible platform| Business challenges | Solutions and benefits |
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Financial services is one of the most highly regulated industries in the world. Capital markets firms have recently had to meet new regulatory requirements for RegNMS and MIFID. The current market turmoil has meant firms are resigned to a new round of compliance demands in areas such as asset pricing, risk modeling, trade restrictions (e.g., on short selling), and capital adequacy. Trading firms will need to have trade-cycle processes in place that have inherent flexibility to respond to new demands from regulators. | Solutions built on Microsoft technologies can reduce compliance complexity by addressing a multitude of compliance requirements through a single, flexible platform. By combining familiar Microsoft tools and applications with the expertise of our worldwide partner network, organizations benefit from solutions that are elegantly simple and yet capable of addressing the most demanding regulatory challenges. The result is solutions that elevate compliance from merely a cost of doing business to an effective plan for improved business process throughout the organization. Firms will also have to spend more on systems to store and retrieve the increased data and trade volumes. This will involve the ability to reconstitute trades to prove to regulators and clients that best execution was achieved. It will also require that all the information contributing to the decision to trade-such as e-mail and instant messages-is appended or linked to the trade record. Data-mining and enterprise search capabilities across structured and unstructured data will become very important. |
Supporting technology: Firms using Microsoft components running on the Windows operating system can be assured that all components are seamlessly integrated. Microsoft products, including Excel 2007, Windows HPC Server 2008, SharePoint Server, and Excel Services, can be used to perform risk analysis, manage enterprise content, and create a personalized portfolio portal. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 supports the rapid development of enterprise-class business applications that give financial users a critical competitive advantage and delivers rich data analysis and data-mining capabilities. Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2007 provides the framework for creating and managing collaborative Web sites and portals. Financial firms can quickly create SharePoint sites that support specific content publishing, content management, records management, and business intelligence needs. They can use SharePoint technology to conduct effective searches for people, documents, and data; participate in forms-driven business processes; and access and analyze large amounts of business data. Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, building on the capabilities of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and Microsoft Office Excel 2007, can help organizations manage all aspects of complex reporting by integrating monitoring, analysis, and planning into a single application.
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