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Lava Trading has added new features to its Lava ColorBook and Lava Trading Floor products, officials say. ColorBook integrates the full depth of order books from ECNs, exchanges and other liquidity sources into a real-time data feed. Lava Trading Floor, a front-end trader workstation, interacts with the ColorBook system, giving traders a consolidated order book in a unified market data montage. Updates to ColorBook include two new features that will allow a user to trade at the national best bid and offer (NBBO) or better, and to seek hidden liquidity. The Spread or Better order feature allows special orders to seek price improvement exclusively for a period of time before reverting to their normal algorithms. Continuous Ping lets users access hidden liquidity and seek price improvement. Other refinements including the Sweep Duration feature, focused on increasing execution efficiency and minimizing market impact. For Trading Floor, Lava expanded its algorithmic offerings and it now supports more algorithmic routes. Enhancements to order management capabilities include Imbalance Windows for various venues, Order View screens for monitoring orders, tickets and executions, and multiple front-end changes. Action Buttons assist with mar ket making by allowing various actions to be applied to a selected order. As a result, users can maintain their quotes and participate in the market with fewer clicks. The features added to both products have been introduced over the past year.

The Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), a joint venture between the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) and Dubai Holding, unveiled plans last week for a new trading hub on an electronic trading floor. The hub will be housed in the Dubai International Financial Center and regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. It will have four- to six-seat clusters open to regional and international financial institutions and trading companies. The DME recently announced plans for an electronic trading floor and will start trading a Middle East sour crude oil futures contract in the fourth quarter of 2006. Officials claim to be the only exchange offering electronic trades in this "hub" format. It will help to generate liquidity and allow international firms to relocate to the floor of the DME. The organization will manage the time zone gaps between Europe and Asia by providing a new center for the trading of energy futures, options and other products, said Gary King, CEO of DME, at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates CERA Week 2006 conference in Houston last week. Centralized clearing will be provided at the Nymex Clearinghouse. Information about the sel ection process for firms and individuals interested in the hubs will be announced at a later date. "DME looks to build upon strong regional confidence and the desire for alternative investment products and risk management," King said.