Algorithmic trading has become a key weapon in today's fast-paced and competitive financial markets. Institutions acknowledge that algorithms are necessary to efficiently process the ever-growing volume of financial data, detect opportunities and make fast decisions.

A new challenge has emerged from this assessment: financial institutions seek the perfect solution to enable the development of complex proprietary algorithms while minimizing the time to market.

Horizon Software started to embed scripting capabilities in its trading solutions in 2010. Following the enthusiastic feedback of its customers and to respond to the increasing demand, a massive effort was done to bring this technology to a higher level.

Horizon Software's objectives was not to offer yet another algorithmic tool; instead, the company aimed at offering a solution that would reap the benefits of many years of trading software R&D through a business-oriented development environment fully dedicated to trading.

"Horizon Algo Trader radically changes the way algorithms are developed: instead of having to code every single action from scratch, developers using Horizon Algo Trader have instant access to all the functions that have been developed and improved for many years and can therefore leverage all the power of our trading solutions. This results in financial institutions being able to design algorithms in a fraction of the time that is required using competitors' solutions." says Hugues Deroubaix, global Head of products.

With Horizon Algo Trader, a simple function call provides access to all the features of the trading suite, from basic operations, for example sending orders, to the most advanced, such as pre-trade safety nets, basket trading, advanced order management, trading automatons, volatility management, pricing, position keeping, hedging, etc.
For example, a delta hedge or a volatility basket algorithm can be written in a few lines of code, as opposed to the much larger effort that would be required with any other algorithmic development tool.

"By drastically reducing the time to market between an algorithm idea and its implementation, we help our clients stay ahead of the competition" adds Hugues Deroubaix.