The agency brokerage business operated by Bloomberg Tradebook has today revealed a product improvement to its Strategy Analyzer (STAZ) tool for traders, adding a new feature called In-Trade, which as the name implies provides in-trade functionality, in addition to existing pre-trade and post-trade features to the Trading Platform .
STAZ, aimed towards institutional investors and traders, brings several components together, including the Bloomberg data and Analytics tools, with predictive models from Tradebook, and provides traders the ability to optimize their trading methodologies in real-time while aiming towards improved execution.
The idea of adding In-Trade functionality was to provide traders with a window to see how the STAZ algorithms are working against the backdrop of the market, in real-time (in-trade) versus the previous version which only provided the pre-trade market impact analysis and post-trade cost analysis tools, among other features.
A trader could have market-data, predictive models, and order performance metrics on a single screen, according to a description in the press release, and now with in-trade features.
Combining such information is critical for any algorithmic focused trading platform where the info should be intuitively displayed on the forefront of the platform interface and not just hidden away within reports and statements - which can distract from trading. This task is even more challenging for a platform that handles a wide range of products, and information to display.
Market data without actionable insights is really just noise.
The company said that STAZ handles 3 billion ticks per day across 450,000 equity symbols, in order for it to help find trading opportunities on live market data. The product is available through the Bloomberg professional terminal under STAZ, and the company provides spot FX through its Tradebook Services LLC unit, according to the update.
Features of STAZ in-trade include the ability for traders to gauge execution metrics across various measurement points including, the bid, mid, ask, open auction, and closing auction prices, and block trading and dark venues.
Commenting in the official press release, Bloomberg Tradebook’s Head of Algorithmic Trading Quantitative Research, Kapil Phadnis, said: "Market data without actionable insights is really just noise. STAZ In-Trade is helping traders extract these insights to make more informed decisions about their strategies."
"We're providing transparency into how algorithms operate, giving traders access to the information they need to adjust their trading strategies in real-time based on market conditions," he added.
While some institutional traders have their own proprietary platforms or technology operations for algorithmic trading in-house, and some have it outsourced, including co-located, in many cases it can be a mix of these, as setups are normally focused in a specific area, such as with strategies that are product/segment or instrument/industry specific, as a generalized example.
From that very diverse landscape of platform needs, whether at a proprietary shop or a fund manager or institutional investor, traders can scan the broad market and look for opportunities using both 3rd party platforms and/or in-house technology, so often may use a number of approaches, such as those available via a Bloomberg terminal, or Reuters platform.
The STAZ solution from Bloomberg Tradebook appears to cater to both sides of the spectrum - including traders that already have in-house solutions - as well as those that rely on or use 3rd party terminals. It would be interesting to compile any results from STAZ picked strategies across a sample of the product's users and compare on aggregate how those trades fared, for example against other automated or quantative strategies.
