Trends in Equities Trading 2020

Bloomberg LP’s announced de-commissioning of its Sellside Execution and Order Management System (SSEOMS) and ION Group’s acquisition of Fidessa lead a large number of sellside businesses to re-evaluate their technology stack. The technology transition simultaneously provides the opportunity to utilise the period of evaluation as an inflection point not just for technology choices but for their business strategy at large in light of market structure changes that imperil traditional sellside execution franchises.

To ensure technology choices made in 2020 remain fit-for-purpose through the full technology lifecycle, GreySpark illustrates the inherent challenge therein by comparing SSEOMS functionality across three functional domains with the offering of five competitor vendors vying to replace SSEOMS. The functional domains are:

• High-touch trading, including program / programme trading;
• Low-touch trading; and
• Middle-office functionality.

Further, the report delves into the challenges and opportunities inherent to a number of non-functional considerations of critical importance to any SSEOMS replacement programme:

• Data acquisition & cost;
• FIX order routing & client connectivity; and
• Non-functional competitive differentiation in vendor systems.