Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT), a global capital markets technology platform provider, today announced the introduction of TT Futures TCA and TT Trade Surveillance, two new offerings that significantly enhance its Data & Analytics and Compliance lines of business. TT Futures TCA, a comprehensive transaction cost analysis (TCA) tool for futures trading, leverages the largest collection of anonymized, millisecond-level futures market and trade data with a vast array of metrics and measures. TT Trade Surveillance, powered by the proprietary SCORE machine learning algorithm, combines new multi-asset coverage and dozens of new configurable models with the machine learning-driven models from TT Score, the company’s first-generation trade surveillance platform. The firm plans to upgrade and shift all TT Score users to TT Trade Surveillance in the second half of this year.
TT Chief Operating Officer Justin Llewellyn-Jones said: “We are constantly in a mode of identifying opportunities that will enhance our clients’ experience, simplify their day-to-day operations, increase efficiencies and add value to the trade life cycle. The introduction of our new futures TCA and expanded multi-asset trade surveillance capabilities are the latest examples of how Trading Technologies and the TT platform play a pivotal role in the global financial markets.”
TT Futures TCA
In August, TT acquired Abel Noser Solutions, the leading global provider of TCA solutions. A pioneer in the space, Abel Noser co-created the volume-weighted average price (VWAP) methodology that is now one of the financial markets’ most widely used technical analysis tools. TCA has been popular in equity markets and other asset classes for many years, but it hasn’t yet been widely adopted as a tool for futures.
Peter Weiler, TT’s EVP Managing Director, Data & Analytics, said: “Historically, investment managers and traders have not been able to rely on a TCA tool tailored for futures. By leveraging the massive amount of real-world futures trading data – anonymized – that only a firm like TT can bring to the table, we’re able to combine it with Abel Noser’s extensive TCA data and custom reporting that has been an essential tool in other asset classes, and produce what is without question the most comprehensive TCA solution for futures. We’ll be providing anonymized peer benchmarks for detailed, post-trade analyses down to the millisecond. Users can look at like trades under historically similar circumstances to make apples-to-apples comparisons, understand their success relative to their peers, ensure they are achieving best execution and more.”
The new TCA for futures capability will enable users to choose from an array of customizable reports to analyze and improve their trading strategies while measuring the efficacy of their trading counterparties. The capability is available now and will be integrated in early 2025 into the TT platform as a widget on the front end, with the customized analytics available to the client based on the metrics, breadth and level of granularity desired. Clients will have an option of three levels of service dependent upon their analytical needs.
TT Trade Surveillance
TT is upgrading its trade surveillance capabilities beyond listed derivatives to a wide range of asset classes, including equities and equity-adjacent subclasses such as preferred, warrants and SPACs; equity options; foreign exchange (FX); and fixed income. TT Trade Surveillance adds 47 new user-configurable surveillance models to its existing suite of models driven by machine learning technology. The new models are designed to detect a wide range of manipulative or disruptive trading activities, including insider trading, front-running and naked short-selling practices.
Ted Morgan, Trading Technologies EVP Managing Director, Compliance, said: “We’re building on our track record of innovation and investment in the product by extending our capabilities into new asset classes – consistent with our company-wide expansion – and more than doubling our surveillance models, putting more power into the users’ hands. They can adjust settings and thresholds that pertain to any particular model and run them on any subset of data they want to filter, such as defining parameters differently for specific countries or distinguishing between retail and institutional flow.”
Morgan said users will continue to enjoy the online suite of analysis tools and out-of-the-box features available to compliance officers investigating alerts, such as the market replay tool, reconciliation module and other graphical aids. TT Trade Surveillance provides the market data needed for particular surveillance models at no extra cost. Users can also create and configure a synthetic instrument to identify potential manipulation across products and markets.
