Finance Magnates spoke with Anthony Brocco, CEO of Advanced Markets, for the latest development of its Contracts-for-difference (CFD) offering to its institutional clientele. His interview can be read in full below.
1. What was the impetus behind launching a CFD offering for clients, or was there a pent up interest from your institutional clients?
As Advanced Markets is a wholesale Liquidity provider for many brokers globally, it became increasingly important for us to offer a fuller suite of products so that our clients could in turn provide those services to their customers.
We certainly want to our clients to be able to get everything they need from Advanced Markets and not have the need to carry on multiple relationships. The CFDs are a complementary product to our existing FX, Metals and Oils offerings that can be traded from the same platform and the same margin account as the other products.
2. How did Advanced Markets decide which were the best indices to be granted exposure through your inaugural CFD offering?
We looked at those that had been most requested by our clients and decided to start with the most major of those indices. As we have already been receiving Metals and Oils directly from our banks as a spot product, the indices became an obvious next product offering.
3. How does Advanced Markets’ offering compare with other CFDs? – For instance, if I am not an existing user at your firm and looking to trade CFDs, what advantages does Advanced Markets afford?
Well, there are multiple advantages to our product. First, we made sure that the CFD offering was consistent with the advantages of our other current offerings. So it is 100% STP/DMA model accessible via multiple liquidity channels including FIX API and MT4 platform, therefore Advanced Markets will never take a position in the Market or against its clients.
Second, the clients get to take advantage of the benefits of using a single margin trading account to access all of our products as well as the ability to use Advanced Markets’ Custodian/Tri partite account set up that provides 100% segregation of their funds that are held in their own name. Third, they get the benefit of our superior technology in the form of both our platform, MT4 Bridge technology which is supplied by Fortex. Finally, they get to leverage our existing relationships that we have managed since 2006 to provide unparalleled liquidity in all market conditions.
4. Are there any specific region pockets of concentration from your institutional clients that the CFD offering is geared towards?
Advanced Markets services clients globally that can all benefit from us offering a more complete product line. It enables our clients to be able to focus on a single relationship instead of needing to maintain multiple ones to accommodate their end client needs. Historically, there is strong demand for CFDs from European customers and increasing appetite for CFD trading from Asia.
5. Are there any plans to augment or expand the CFD offering beyond ten tradable instruments?
We will grow and expand our CFD line based largely on the demand from our clientele. This is a very good kick-off point for us and our clients' needs will determine what we potentially add next. So far, we have received multiple inquiries regarding adding US Dollar Index, which we are currently considering.
With multiple credit relationships and superior, scalable technology advantages there isn’t anything we cannot accommodate and be able to do in an efficient, consistent and market leading manner. We have all the resources needed at our disposal and clients should certainly see Advanced Markets as a long-term partner that can meet all of their current and future needs.
