Thomson Reuters has updated its matching engine to decrease the rates at which customers of the firm’s matching venue will be able to get new quotes. In a world where high-frequency trading has been dominating the markets, Thomson Reuters increases the engine’s market data frequency for a number of currency pairs.
As a result, the company expects that its customers will make better use of the service of one of the biggest electronic communications networks (ECNs) for trading foreign Exchange . The combined volume of FXall and Thomson Reuters Matching has reached $353 billion last month as the first of the typically subdued summer trading months is behind us.
According to the company’s statement, “Increased frequency will enhance price discovery for clients in key currencies, and increase precision in US dollar-euro trading.”
The process of decreasing the time between data updates will be conducted gradually, starting from the major pairs and includes the vast majority of U.S. dollar crosses.
The new refresh rate will be 100 milliseconds, which will drive a more efficient market with better price discovery rates. The changes will also affect the precision in trading the EUR/USD, which will benefit from new half-pip offers which will increase granularity.
The changes will also affect the Minimum Quote Life (MQL) for the affected pairs, which are USD/CAD, AUD/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CNY, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/MXN and the AUD/NZD pair.
Commenting on the announcement the Global Head of foreign exchange at Thomson Reuters, Phil Weisberg said, “Following our recent launch of iceberg orders on Matching, the market data frequency changes are the latest in a series of innovations to improve access to Liquidity for market participants across our client base.”
Earlier this week, Thomson Reuters added Iceberg order functionality to its Matching venue, enabling the firm’s clients to mask the full size of any limit order they place on the platform by dividing it into smaller lots. Iceberg orders for FX have been pioneered by LavaFX, but have since been adopted by almost all ECNs for trading foreign exchange.
