SIFMA 2007: A Sneak Peak

The conference kicks off on June 19 at the Hilton New York hotel and complex at 1335 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) between W. 53rd and 54th Streets and lasts until June 21. Attendees can view this year's show schedule on the Web at www.sifma.org/tmc2007. The exhibit's floor plan can also be viewed at www2.sia.com/conf_vendors/2007floor1.html.

Blade PC provider ClearCube Technology will announce this week the debut of user port devices that will support full motion graphics for dual and quad monitor configuration via an IP connection. Prior to the release of I9420 I/Port, which provides dual-monitor support; I9440 I/Port, which provides quad-monitor support and C7420 Digital Fiber User Port, which supports single or dual monitors without co-mingling data with other network traffic, remote users needed to be located within 200 meters of the PC blade to get high-resolution full-motion graphics and USB peripheral support. The new solutions allow users to port to centrally located PC blades over an existing Ethernet network or fiber connection and experience a one-to-one computing environment regardless of their distance from the datacenter. ClearCube will announce pricing when the product ships in the third quarter of this year, say vendor officials.

Display vendor Eizo Nanao Technologies will extend its FlexScan line of LCD monitors with its 20.1-inch FlexScan S2031W and the 24.1-inch FlexScan S2431W monitors. Both offerings come with a 16:10 aspect ratio (1680 by 1050 and 1920 by 1200 native resolution, respectively) as well as Eizo's BrightRegulator function, which reads the ambient light of the office environment and adjusts the brightness accordingly. Since the screen is always at the ideal brightness level and never too bright, firms can expect to see additional energy savings, say vendor officials. This feature also helps prevent eye fatigue and the decrease in productivity that accompanies it, officials add.

Gissing Software, a solution specialist in the routing and transformation of real-time market and trade data, will be unveiling its next-generation multi-vendor contribution system, Gissing ConteX MCS 4.0, at the Sifma conference this week. The software has been re-engineered to offer improvements in performance as well as new functionality, dynamic system configuration and better operational monitoring and reporting capabilities, Gissing officials say. Gissing has developed a set of output handlers for the E.U.'s Markets in Financial Instrument Directive (Mifid), which will allow users to contribute both pre- and post-trade data to their choice of venues, say officials. Four major banks have offered to join the beta test program for Gissing ConteX MCS 4.0, with the first clients expected to adopt the new solution and go live in the fourth quarter of this year, officials add.

High-performance database provider Kx Systems plans to announce this week the release of version 2.4 of its Kdb+ low-latency database platform. The new version doubles the application speeds for filtering and querying data streams, such as market data feeds, say vendor officials. Other speed-enhancing features support real-time corrections on order book data as it is received and dynamic indices for nested data—enabling multiple streaming sorts for extremely fast, sophisticated analytics. The platform also includes features that support growing, multi-terabyte databases and can process over a billion market data records per day, say officials. Users can partition one day's data across multiple local disk drives, preserving rapid parallel disk access for single day queries, officials add. Kdb+ v2.4 is available worldwide for 64-bit Linux, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X. It also supports multi-core chips out of the box.

Nyfix Millennium will announce the launch of Millennium Plus, a liquidity aggregation service. The new service allows Millennium participants to generate anonymous liquidity alerts to external dark pools and other liquidity sources, significantly increasing execution opportunity and match rates among Millennium participants. Millennium Plus liquidity alerts operate within the market infrastructure rather than at the desktop level, ensuring that no trading decisions can be made from the information. A Millennium Plus order allows participants to generate liquidity alerts to third-party sources known as Passive Liquidity Responders (PLRs). These liquidity partners include external dark pools, broker internalization engines, and other pockets of hidden liquidity from across the industry. Millennium Plus is currently in production with a handful of early adopters. Collectively, these first movers have nearly doubled their match rates within Millennium.

Pivot Solutions, provider of communications networks for financial service organizations, will announce Pivot 360°, an expansion of the company's flagship instant messaging (IM) offering, IM_Trader, at the conference this week. Pivot 360° allows financial services professionals to communicate, integrate and collaborate with external and internal audiences in a secure, fully compliant environment from one central location, Pivot officials say. The new release consists of a suite of tools that tighten workflow processes, expand collaboration opportunities and streamline information management, add officials. Pivot 360° complements Pivot's IM_Trader by managing all the information 360 degrees around a conversation or a transaction. By seamlessly bringing together people, content and services into a single collaboration point, Pivot 360° aggregates and integrates information and data across disparate sources into decision making and trading specific workflows, say officials.

Portware, an independent provider of global, broker-neutral, multi-asset trading systems, will announce this week that it has enhanced its offerings to allow the integration of pre-trade analysis and execution tools. The solutions provide users with superior execution and a Mifid-ready trading environment, say vendor officials. Portware's neutrality enables it to provide a wide access to pools of liquidity and unlimited sources of transaction cost analysis (TCA) from one seamless and customizable portal, add officials. Portware has incorporated multiple broker and independent pre-trade cost estimates and post-trade analytics combined with real-time benchmarking, delivering a comprehensive solution for achieving and proving best execution. The deployment provides users with a real-time, single view of their trading workflow and transaction costs in order to execute trades more efficiently, minimize market impact and improve performance, say vendor officials.

Progress Software, a supplier of application infrastructure software used to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, will launch the Progress Apama FX Market Aggregation Accelerator at the Sifma conference this week. Combining a set of foreign exchange (FX) integration adapters with pre-built Apama trading dashboards and foundation FX algorithms, the Apama FX Market Aggregation Accelerator helps both sell- and buy-side traders develop and deploy high-frequency FX trading strategies that capitalize on proprietary trading techniques, vendor officials say. The product will enable traders to accelerate the deployment of trading strategies that can access multiple FX liquidity sources to identify best price and market depth, add officials. The FX Market Aggregation Accelerator is based on the Progress Apama platform, a cross-asset, algorithmic trading system that enables capital markets firms to instantly and continuously analyze, evaluate and respond to complex market events in real-time.

Independent Financial Marketing Group, a subsidiary of Sun Life Financial, will announced this week that it has deployed Scivantage Professional to deliver real-time, automated account opening, trade order processing and account management capabilities to its network of financial institutions. Scivantage Professional offers an integrated suite of applications to open and maintain brokerage and annuity accounts, direct mutual fund trades, and access centralized client and account data from a single, browser-based interface, Scivantage officials say. With complete access to Scivantage's Account Opening, Trade Processing and Account Management applications, Independent Financial can provide its customers with real-time processing, workflow management and account automation across multiple back office platforms, including Pershing, National Financial, Broadridge (formerly ADP Brokerage Services Group) and Independent Financial's proprietary Infinet21 system, add Scivantage officials.

Skyler Technology, a low-latency trading solutions provider, will announce this week that it has combined its order book aggregation and analytics engine with Tervela's hardware-based messaging fabric to deliver low latency to trading applications. Algorithmic and program trading applications as well as traders' desktops gain immediate access to liquidity information and the power to act upon it instantaneously. Financial services firms can take advantage of this platform to find new Alpha-generating trading opportunities across multiple liquidity pools with the confidence of knowing that no one will be faster, Skyler Technology officials say. The combination offers fast order routing and delivery capabilities, thereby accelerating the whole trading cycle from the moment market data enters the enterprise to the sending of orders to the exchanges, add officials.

StreamBase Systems, a provider of high-performance complex event processing (CEP), will launch version 5.0 of its StreamBase platform this week. The new release addresses customer feature requests related to developer productivity, out-of-the box industry CEP frameworks, end-to-end application development, expanded support for multimedia data types, advanced pattern matching, enterprise-class security and high-capacity tickstore support, vendor officials say. The latest enhancements further speed the development and delivery of high-volume, low-latency CEP applications that address the rapidly growing real-time processing demands of customers and partners worldwide, add officials. The new version continues to build upon the industry-leading performance of previous releases—and remains the fastest CEP server available today, capable of processing hundreds of thousands of messages/second per CPU, say officials. The platform also offers new capabilities to enable seamless integration with existing IT infrastructure and provides the power enterprises everywhere need to further accelerate time-to-market, leverage existing resources, and increase competitive advantage, add officials.

TheMuniCenter—an electronic marketplace founded by a consortium of major broker-dealers and operational for facilitating live fixed-income trading across multiple asset classes—is launching itself under the new brand TMC at the Sifma conference and exhibtion this week. The re-branding acknowledges TMC's breadth of both taxable and tax-exempt offerings, say TMC officials. The firm is also announcing the launch of the first live, two-sided and executable marketplace for agency collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) and whole loans. Comingled inventory from numerous dealers and wholesalers will be available on its site, add officials. Trading will be on an anonymous basis with TMC as the risk-less counterparty on each trade. The initial client base will be supported by cutting-edge analytics and indicative data screening filters, say officials.