Trends in Equities Trading 2020

This report supports these franchises to develop a robust technology change practice by highlighting key functional and non-functional areas of cash equities trading platforms for both current and medium-to-long-term needs.

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: