Buy-Side Technology Awards: Best Buy-Side EMS—ConvergEx’s RealTick

Even before RealTick had unveiled the 11th installment of its flagship product, the judging panel for this year’s Buy-Side Technology Awards was impressed by the vendor’s scale and customization, especially after being acquired by ConvergEx Group from Barclays Capital last December. After all, ConvergEx was named as the best buy-side OMS provider.

RealTick’s order-routing networking provides access to more than 100 markets in the US, Canada, EMEA, Asia and Latin America.

With RealTick 11, the company expanded the Level 2 display for Canadian markets, and added depth-of-book data for Brazilian and Johannesburg equity and futures markets. More than 60 order management systems (OMSs) and third-party systems are integrated into its execution management system (EMS) with more than 150 brokers on the network. Additionally, it has as suite of more than 220 algorithms and 1,000 strategies available.

RealTick has also added a strategy server that will allow RealTick to implement specific algorithms at the request of its clients in order to give them more direct control.

“This really complements the brokers’ pairs algos—it doesn’t replace them,” says RealTick CEO Stuart Breslow. “It allows us also to implement a spread algorithm. What’s unique about this is that rather than picking an individual brokers’ pairs algos, it is one level of abstraction and it’s truly multi-broker, truly global, and truly cross-asset class. It allows our clients to trade any two securities across asset classes.”

The vendor has also implemented a rules-based order-routing engine that allows the receiving client to specify numerous configurable rules and criteria; it has expanded its trading analytics; and for its mobile functionality, RealTick has made it possible for users to cancel an individual order or blocks of orders remotely via their Apple iPads.

“This was intended for those traders who pull away from the desk and are monitoring their orders in the market,” Breslow says. “If, all of a sudden, the market moves away or some sort of groundbreaking news happens, they can pull themselves to the sideline.”

With 24 percent of the vote, RealTick was named the best EMS provider at this year’s Waters Rankings, topping Bloomberg (14 percent) and SunGard (11 percent). —AM