Euronext.liffe, the international derivatives business of Euronext, completed the latest upgrade of its LIFFE CONNECT trading platform this summer, as part of an on-going investment programme, giving the system significantly improved performance. Customers will see the further benefits of increased capacity with this week’s launch of the successful 'full-screen' market model into the Paris equity derivatives market.
Hugh Freedberg, Chief Executive of Euronext.liffe, said: "This latest version of LIFFE CONNECT® offers a dramatic step change in performance. Average host processing times are now less than 1 millisecond. We estimate the trading engines to be making over 100 million implied price calculations per day, in our Short Term Interest Rate futures alone. Critical to the continued growth we are seeing in algorithmic trading is the distribution of full market depth in real time via the LIFFE CONNECT® API, which has been a feature of the system since its inception."
Building on the performance improvements in implied processing delivered in the last upgrade of LIFFE CONNECT® (November 2005), this latest upgrade has re-architected LIFFE CONNECT® from two to four trading engines, running the latest HP on Linux hardware. Further trading engines can be added to deliver capacity on demand. The system was designed and implemented by Atos Euronext Market Solutions.
Hugh Freedberg continued: "Our Equity Trading Engines are already dealing with 10,000 incoming option quote updates per second, and will scale significantly higher based on market requirements. We will continue to pursue an aggressive strategy of improving the quality of all our options marketplaces. This week the market is seeing the initial benefits via the launch of a new market making scheme in Paris individual equity options."
Jean-Marc Bouhelier, Chief Executive Officer, AEMS said: "AEMS are delighted to have provided to Euronext.liffe a platform which allows them to optimise their service to the growing needs of their clients. Our commitment to product innovation enables us to deliver scalable, resilient and cost effective technology, which in turn allows our clients to develop a truly diversified and global derivatives business."
Ralph Van Put, Chairman of Saen Options, commented: "The performance improvement in the LIFFE CONNECT® 9.1 Release, has allowed us to increase the quality and size of quotes, in all the products which Saen Options make markets."
Jelle Elzinga of Optiver, commented: "LIFFE CONNECT® enables Optiver, a global liquidity provider, to show their bid and ask prices continuously on thousands of screens for substantial amounts. These prices can be traded and cleared with just a mouse click. Trading takes place in a liquid and transparent Central Counterparty environment eliminating counterparty risk and expensive collateral."
Csaba Sinka of Hardcastle Trading commented: "One of the great things that differentiate LIFFE CONNECT® from other trading platforms is the speed. Whenever we send a quote or order it appears on the screen in a blink of an eye or if it is marketable we receive the trade with no delay. Another great feature is that if the member disconnects all open orders and quotes are deleted immediately, so we don't have to bother calling the hotlines to ask for mass deletions, it is done automatically. This reduces significantly our operational risk. We were extremely happy that we can request all of our trades any time we want and we can always reconcile them."