Low Latency News

Available Now: 2010 Trading Beyond the Horizon

Download Now

In 2010, financial markets participants will continue to expand their trading activities as liquidity increasingly becomes fragmented, seeking alpha in new markets, best execution in dark pools, arbitrage opportunities across the order book and by implementing high frequency and complex, multi-leg, cross asset class strategies.

The successful operations – whether they be the proprietary desks of traditional broker/dealers, specialist high frequency and algorithmic traders, or quantitative hedge funds –  will leverage a trading infrastructure that combines high performance analytical, algorithmic and order routing platforms with the lowest latency access to multiple, geographically dispersed execution venues.

Multi-market trading – leveraging a fragmented market landscape – introduces new challenges, even for trading firms that have mastered the complexities of low-latency execution using approaches such as co-location and proximity.  Those mechanisms, while still relevant, provide a less complete solution when trading across markets that are geographically dispersed.

New entrants into the market for connectivity and proximity services include organizations that are themselves market participants, such as sell-side firms offering sponsored access and DMA, and liquidity venues, which are now providing global order routing networks, in some cases channelling order flow to their competitors.

Those service providers join traditional players including telcos, hosting companies and value-added extranet vendors, who often bundle trading applications with connectivity.

The bottom line: For multi-market trading, optimization of long-haul and metro communications links, combined with smart use of co-location, is an imperative for achieving the lowest latency, and this requires an understanding of connectivity offerings at a deep, granular level.

This  industry briefing explains the drivers for fragmentation and multi-market trading, the evolving landscape of market access, and explores connectivity approaches to minimize latency.

Check out the newest knowledgeportal to support low latency and dark fiber news and resources.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. securities regulators are investigating ways to bring light to so-called dark pools, automated trading systems that do not display quotes publicly, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

Dark pools, where orders are anonymously matched so that traders do not alert the wider market to their intentions, have triggered concerns that stock pricing may not be transparent and that a privileged few are benefiting. More

Herndon, VA (PRWeb) June 25, 2009, 2009 No longer can a trader meet their low latency requirements by just collocating in the same facility as the exchanges. The exchanges are spread out now, and so is the market data essential to successful execution of trading strategies. Traders need to find the optimal combination of space and network configuration that is central to the market data feeds and the exchanges they are trading on. That is why CFN Services is extending FiberSource Advisor® to include a Financial Services specific practice. Working with CFN Services FiberSource Advisor® to help meet low latency requirements allows Trading Firms the ability to focus resources on the trading environment, platform, messaging, algorithms and other essential key areas.  FiberSource Advisor® provides the trading firm a roadmap to optimize their network; helping plan and configure the optimal collocation sites, lowest latency networking solutions, and peace of mind achieved with full disclosure of all options available.
CFN Services is a leading ultra low latency and custom fiber optic network integrator in the financial industry; offering specific Ultra Low Latency solutions for the trading areas in a growing number of financial centers globally including Toronto, Chicago, New York/New Jersey Metro, Washington, DC, London, and Frankfurt.  CFN Services sets themselves apart from other transport vendors by offering: carrier neutrality, FiberSource Advisor® professional services, fully managed services, and the ability to design custom fiber networks.
CFN Services specializes in designing, implementing and managing high performance, low latency fiber networks. CFN is a custom fiber network provider, not simply a supplier of circuits. This is a unique advantage to a trading firm, because CFN and their FiberSource Advisor® professional services, can assist in the overall plan and development of the financial network to ensure optimization based on each firm’s unique priorities for market data delivery, trade execution, clearing data, and internal IT operations. CFN Service’s FiberSource Advisor® offering provides sophisticated financial trading firms with multiple network configuration options that fully leverage their existing network investments while providing a growth path and simultaneously lowering latency.
As a spin off of CSX Corporation, CFN Services carries on a 20-year legacy in fiber network deployment and management. CFN Services’ proprietary FiberSource® knowledge-based platform delivers access to over 500 carrier networks globally including more than 100 submarine systems; providing direct visibility into all available dark and lit fiber options, collocation facilities, and metro fiber rings for optimal deployment to any global financial center worldwide. Through FiberSource Advisor® CFN Services’ combines its vast telecom knowledge base with extensive experience in lit and dark fiber network design and implementation to provide trading firms with an edge on all aspects of MAN and WAN network deployment. CFN’s engineers articulate and provide recommendations on optimal transport architectures across technologies including WDM, SONET, Ethernet, IP, and MPLS.  FiberSource Advisor® will help traders lower latency on their existing routes, while optimizing the overall transport network inclusive of future growth plans.
As David Conrad, VP of Sales at CFN Services has observed, “ Partnering with CFN Services and utilizing FiberSource Advisor® provides trading firms the confidence and assurance that they are getting the best network solutions to meet their unique needs. With a view to all available fiber, including that of Utilities, Carriers and Dark Fiber providers; we enable our clients to rapidly sift through a typically daunting array of network options and providers to get to the optimal solution based on their specific requirements. Working with CFN as an integrator ensures carrier neutrality and eliminates the typical network operator’s bias for their own, often sub-optimal, end-to-end solutions.”
For more information about CFN Services and FiberSource Advisor® www.cfnservices.com

About CFN Services
CFN Services is a managed telecom infrastructure services company providing network services for the Enterprise, Public Sector and Carrier Markets. Specializing in network planning, deployment, and managed services, including local access transport, low latency networking, and mobile backhaul optimization, CFN Services leverages the company’s flagship FiberSource® network planning and optimization platform. CFN Services has provided network planning and deployment services to some of the leading wireless and wireline network operators including Verizon, AT&T, Level 3 and Sprint.  For more information please see http://www.cfnservices.com.
Contact: Judy May  – 703-788-6633; Judy.May@cfnservices.com

Herndon, VA June 1, 2009 (PRWeb) CFN Services, the leader in Low Latency Network Solutions, is now expanding their offerings into Toronto. CFN is offering the lowest latency connections for global markets to key Toronto exchanges: Alpha Trading, Pure Trading, Omega ATS, MATCH Now, TMX Group, and Chi-X Canada. Now traders globally can receive a trading advantage in Toronto by partnering with CFN Services.
CFN is a leading ultra low latency and custom fiber optic network integrator in the financial industry; offering specific Ultra Low Latency solutions for the trading areas in Toronto, Chicago, New York/ New Jersey Metro, Washington DC, London, and Frankfurt.  CFN is recognized as the only network provider to offer a Latency Level SLA along with a Latency Improvement Plan. CFN Services sets themselves apart from other transport vendors by offering carrier neutrality, professional services, fully managed services and the ability to design and implement custom fiber networks.
“We are seeing a transformation in trading on Canadian markets as ATS’s like Alpha, Pure, Chi-X, Omega, and dark pools are challenging TMX Group’s historical dominance.  This transformation is providing fertile ground for global high frequency traders; particularly those throughout North America.  We are meeting the needs of these traders by providing our customers the best networking solutions to accelerate trading,” states David Conrad, Vice President of Sales. “We prioritize the routes and trading areas that are key to our customer’s success, and Toronto is now one of the areas that we will offer guaranteed low latency optimized network solutions.”

CFN Services’ FiberSource® Telecom Platform provide them the ability to view all available fiber, including that of Utilities, Carriers, Dark Fiber and Collocation Providers; in order to put together the optimal network routes or provide custom network solutions specific to a customer’s exact requirements and priorities. The key to the integrated solution provided by CFN Services is the ability to identify metro fiber, long haul and the collocation space to piece together the carrier networks onto one optimal path.  This translates into a networking performance advantage for an electronic trading firm. This allows CFN Services to be Carrier and Data Center agnostic, ensuring to provide the best solution based on latency, performance and stability not on relationships.
Trading Firms now have the ability to reduce Fiber Optic mileage, decrease latency and have confidence that your network decisions were made with the knowledge of all existing options.
About CFN Services
CFN Services is a managed telecom infrastructure services company providing network services for the Enterprise, Public Sector and Carrier Markets. Specializing in network planning, deployment, and managed services, including local access transport, low latency networking, and mobile backhaul optimization, CFN Services leverages the company’s flagship FiberSource® network planning and optimization platform. CFN Services has provided network planning and deployment services to some of the leading wireless and wireline network operators including Verizon, AT&T, Level 3 and Sprint.  For more information please see http://www.cfnservices.com.