UNX, a leading provider of innovative trading technology solutions, has integrated the full suite of Knight Direct's electronic trading services and algorithms for equities into UNX's broker-neutral Catalyst Execution Management System (EMS) and Portal.
While UNX has long provided access to Knight Link and Knight Match products, this new connectivity allows both firms' clients to directly route DMA and worked orders to Knight for execution using the Catalyst Portal front end.
Clients also can employ Knight's suite of algorithmic trading and smart-order routing strategies, taking advantage of Knight's industry-leading technology and liquidity in displayed and dark markets. Solutions include VWAP and participation algorithms, as well as Knight's latest FAN, Oasis, Covert and Sumo liquidity-seeking and SOR strategies.
Furthermore, Catalyst's open technology framework and advanced Software Development Kit (SDK) will allow Knight to directly control the integration, customization and deployment of new services and strategies as they are being developed. This innovative ability for brokers to quickly integrate their own specific offerings into a multi-broker platform represents a dramatic departure from existing trading technology.
"Buy-side clients always have been dependent upon their EMS provider's ability to integrate brokerage trading products and services rapidly and efficiently, and the sell side often is limited in what it can integrate with independent platforms," explains UNX CEO Thomas Kim.
"Catalyst is redefining broker-neutral trading technology by empowering broker-dealers to rapidly and seamlessly integrate new algorithmic strategies as well as other proprietary content/services at their own discretion."
Knight Direct Managing Director Joseph Wald affirms that Catalyst's new paradigm aligns with the company's approach. "Our objective is to offer buy- and sell-side clients the customized features that support individual trading styles and enhance tactical efficiencies, and Catalyst's open technology provides the ideal tool and gateway to do so."
"What's more, Knight is continually enhancing our algorithmic trading solutions to adapt to client needs, changes in market structure and competitive forces, so Catalyst will enhance our ability to deliver our solutions to mutual clients as quickly as possible," he adds.