Algorithmic trading is a method of executing orders using automated pre-programmed trading instructions accounting for variables such as time, price, and volume. This type of trading attempts to leverage the speed and computational resources of computers relative to human traders. In the twenty-first century, algorithmic trading has been gaining traction with both retail and institutional traders. A study in 2019 showed that around 92% of trading in the Forex market was performed by trading algorithms rather than humans.
In finance, market data is price and other related data for a financial instrument reported by a trading venue such as a stock exchange. Market data allows traders and investors to know the latest price and see historical trends for instruments such as equities, fixed-income products, derivatives, and currencies.
Direct market access (DMA) in financial markets is the electronic trading infrastructure that gives investors wishing to trade in financial instruments a way to interact with the order book of an exchange. Normally, trading on the order book is restricted to broker-dealers and market making firms that are members of the exchange. Using DMA, investment companies and other private traders use the information technology infrastructure of sell side firms such as investment banks and the market access that those firms possess, but control the way a trading transaction is managed themselves rather than passing the order over to the broker's own in-house traders for execution. Today, DMA is often combined with algorithmic trading giving access to many different trading strategies. Certain forms of DMA, most notably "sponsored access", have raised substantial regulatory concerns because of the possibility of a malfunction by an investor to cause widespread market disruption.
A multilateral trading facility (MTF) is a European Union regulatory term for a self-regulated financial trading venue. These are alternatives to the traditional stock exchanges where a market is made in securities, typically using electronic systems. The concept was introduced within the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), a European Directive designed to harmonise retail investors protection and allow investment firms to provide services throughout the EU.
dbFX was Deutsche Bank’s online margin foreign exchange trading platform and service for individual and institutional investors including financial institutions, hedge funds, corporations, asset managers, money managers, commodity trading advisors, broker-dealers, brokerage firms, high net worth individuals, and sophisticated and professional traders, which operated from 2006-2011.
High-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic trading in finance characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools. While there is no single definition of HFT, among its key attributes are highly sophisticated algorithms, co-location, and very short-term investment horizons in trading securities. HFT uses proprietary trading strategies carried out by computers to move in and out of positions in seconds or fractions of a second.
Matchbook FX was an internet-based electronic communication network for trading currency online in the Spot-FX or foreign exchange market. It operated between 1999 and 2002.
Virtu Financial is an American company that provides financial services, trading products and market making services. Virtu provides product suite including offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics, broker-neutral, multi-dealer platforms in workflow technology and two-sided quotations and trades in equities, commodities, currencies, options, fixed income, and other securities on over 230 exchanges, markets, and dark pools. Virtu uses proprietary technology to trade large volumes of securities. The company went public on the Nasdaq in 2015.
Monex Europe is a UK-based foreign exchange company that provides currency exchange and international payments to corporate and institutional clients.
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or colloquially, crypto, is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.
smartTrade Technologies is a French financial software company that provides technology to financial institutions. Smart Trade develops software and provides software as a service for matching for equities, fixed income, and forex trades, an FX eCommerce and single dealer platform, an OTC and derivatives dealing systems, commodities dealing platform, and a Smart Order Routing system.
Circle is a peer-to-peer payments technology company that now manages stablecoin USDC, a cryptocurrency the value of which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. It was founded by Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville in October 2013. Circle is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. USDC, the second largest stablecoin worldwide, is designed to hold at or near a stable price of $1. The majority of its stablecoin collateral is held in short-term U.S. government securities.
Xapo Bank is a private bank headquartered in Gibraltar, which operates globally and is licensed as a virtual asset currency provider by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. As of 2023, the company offers stock market trading to its clients in Europe.
Fondex Global is a Cyprus registered online brokerage that provides financial trading in contracts for difference (CFD) on the currency markets, shares, ETFs, major indices and commodities such as precious metals; gold and crude oil.
Gemini Trust Company, LLC (Gemini) is an American cryptocurrency exchange and custodian bank. It was founded in 2014 by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
Digital Currency Group Inc. (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.
Last look is a trading practice where the liquidity provider (LP) provides a quote rather than a firm price into the trading system or execution venue. Last look venues are often used to conduct trading on foreign exchange markets (FX) for retail foreign exchange trading.
OKX, formerly known as OKEx, is a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange. It was founded by Star Xu in 2017, who is also the CEO as of 2023. The President is Hong Fang and the CMO is Haider Rafique. OKX is owned by OK Group, which also owns the crypto exchange Okcoin. As of August 2024, OKX is Top 3 Spot Cryptocurrency exchange in the world according to Coinmarketcap with a Spot Exchange Score of 7.8.
XTX Markets Limited is a British algorithmic trading company based in London. It was founded in January 2015 by Alexander Gerko, who is currently co-CEO alongside Hans Buehler. The company employs over 250 people globally and uses state-of-the-art machine learning technology to produce price forecasts for over 50,000 financial instruments across equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities and crypto. It uses those forecasts to trade on exchanges and alternative trading venues, and to offer differentiated liquidity directly to clients worldwide. The firm trades over $250bn a day across 35 countries.
Paxos Trust Company is a New York–based financial institution and technology company specializing in blockchain. The company's product offerings include a cryptocurrency brokerage service, asset tokenization services, and settlement services. ItBit, a bitcoin exchange run by Paxos, was the first bitcoin exchange to be licensed by the New York State Department of Financial Services, granting the company the ability to be the custodian and exchange for customers in the United States.
£85.91 million (2021) [1]