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Herndon, VA – March 6, 2011 – CFN Services, a leading provider of managed high frequency trading infrastructure services, today announced that it has added optimized delivery of North American exchange feeds on its global low latency trading infrastructure platform which dramatically reduce latency between, and within, US and Canadian trading venues. This eliminates the need for clients to invest in low latency circuits and instead utilize CFN Managed Trading Infrastructure Platform to deliver their market data cost effectively and with leading low latency. The CFN Managed Trading Infrastructure Platform seamlessly integrates the CFN Financial Ecosystem, which provides clients with a wide range of complimentary market data, news, service and application providers. The CFN Financial Ecosystem is consistent with CFN’s policy of being vendor neutral to provide the best of class solutions.

CFN Low Latency Market Data Delivery is designed to provide best of breed solutions for each client and insure reliability, performance, and a lower overall operating cost by employing:

• Optimized Infrastructure – CFN maintains an evergreen structured technology refresh program which can quickly and seamlessly react to market demands and changes
• Resiliency – CFN practice is to maintain redundant connectivity to all data sources

• Flexible configurations – as business needs and trading strategies evolve services can be quickly modified to meet current requirements

• Lower cost of ownership – Fully managed solutions to include the market data, connec-tivity and managed hosting

• Scalability – CFN can support requirements ranging from a single server in a single location to an interconnected global deployment
• Support – from a 24×7 operations center to on-demand access to a pool of interdisciplinary talent throughout a client’s entire systems life cycle, from needs determination, evaluation, implementation, deployment, enhancements, and maintenance

Sebastian Yoon, CFN Vice President of Financial Services, states, “CFN Managed Trading Infrastructure is designed to optimize the trading process while controlling expenses for our clients. For example we are able to reduce delivery latency of CME, NYSE, BATs, and ARCA market data between Chicago and New York to 14.6 milliseconds, while streamlining expenses for clients by eliminating the need to run redundant individual data circuits.”

About CFN Services
CFN Services is a managed telecom infrastructure services company providing network services for the Enterprise, Public Sector, Carrier and Wireless Markets, specializing in ultra-low latency networking, middle mile and last mile optimization and mobile back haul. CFN Services leverages FiberSource®, a global knowledge-based platform that identifies all available dark and lit fiber, collocation, towers, structures and lit buildings; providing network design, planning, deployment, and managed services offerings. For more information http://www.cfnservices.com

Recently, there has been a lot of information distributed in the industry regarding latency in optical transport systems. This white paper takes an objective look at what really causes latency in transport systems and what to look for in a transport system designed for low latency. Download Now

The Securities and Exchange Commission may crack down on a controversial practice that has caught on at various U.S. stock market centers, including Nasdaq, Bats Exchange and Direct Edge, that gives some traders privileged access to key market information.

In a letter fired off Friday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked that the SEC ban so-called flash order types, which route stock pricing information for a brief period of time away from the displayed market centers, where all investors can see current orders and prices, and shows it to a limited group of member traders who can then decide whether to fill an order before it is routed out to another market.

The issue has been one of increasing controversy on Wall Street. Flash quotes fly in the face of four-year old rules that were supposed to level the playing field for all investors and make pricing information more accessible. Yet until now the SEC has allowed the three market centers to proceed.

Regulation National Market System required that orders be filled at the best price at any given time regardless of where that price was located. So if Nasdaq did not display the best price for a given stock as the order came in but Bats did, Nasdaq would have to route the order to Bats.

The flash quote programs hold up that process by displaying orders to members for as much as 500 milliseconds–an eternity in electronic trading–before routing out. Some say that gives traders with access to the flash quotes an advantage in that they can fill an order for a lower cost than it may be once it gets routed back out to another market.

Given the explosion in market volumes in the last year, and the fractionalization of the markets caused by Regulation NMS, the major stock trading venues have an incentive to try to fill orders in-house without routing out to rival centers. Direct Edge, an electronic communications network backed by Goldman Sachs ( GS – news – people ), Citadel and Knight Trading, was the first to offer such an order type to its members and recently has used it to great success in siphoning market volume away from NYSE, Bats and Nasdaq.

A year after becoming an equities exchange, BATS plans to grab a
chunk of the options market through aggressive pricing that appeals to
some of the same automated liquidity-providing firms that helped make
it the third-largest exchange operator in U.S. equities.

“Compared
to our competitors in this space, we’re lean, based on our direct
monthly expenses and capital outlay to get into options, so we’re
operating on a different scale than other exchanges,” said Joe
Ratterman, CEO of BATS Exchange. “Because of that, we can be
aggressively priced.”

BATS Options will have maker-taker
pricing in a price-time market model. The exchange hasn’t yet announced
its pricing, but will target all options classes, and not just those
quoted in penny increments, Ratterman said. He does not think the
exchange will offer different pricing for penny-quoted and
non-penny-quoted options, but noted that the final decision hasn’t yet
been made. In equities BATS has sometimes used inverted maker-taker
pricing to attract volume.

“If history is any guide, they’re
very aggressive with their pricing metrics, and will enter the options
space with a pricing structure that will undercut the competition and
will attract interest and competition from trading entities,” said Andy
Nybo, a principal at research firm TABB Group.

BATS’s
ambitions for options are aggressive. “We wouldn’t be going into this
market if there wasn’t a big opportunity for BATS to come in, make
improvements and gain market share,” Ratterman said. “U.S. equities was
one of the most competitive markets in the world and we managed to do
very well when we broke into that space. There’s nothing to keep us
from being successful in options.”

Ratterman expects BATS’s
eventual options market share to equal its share in equities. In June,
BATS accounted for 10.7 percent of equities volume. BATS, formerly an
ECN, opened for trading in January 2006 and became an exchange in
August 2008.

BATS intends to build its options market by
appealing to a range of investors, including institutions, retail
brokers and market-making firms. “We’ll attract as much diversity [of
flow] as possible,” Ratterman said. “We have a fair and open model in
the equities world and will have that in options.”

But the
exchange’s strong suit is its appeal to automated market makers. “The
performance metrics of our system have traditionally appealed to
automated market-making firms because of the low-risk characteristics
of their trading on our markets, and the consistency and performance of
our system,” Ratterman said. “It’s likely we’ll have as much influence
on the options side.”

TABB’s Nybo notes that BATS’s reputation
for having a strong technology platform and low-latency infrastructure
will boost its prospects in options. “They are looking to attract
quantitative trading firms using low-latency, high-frequency strategies
and those that arbitrage fleeting price discrepancies,” he said.

BATS
will file the rule set for its new market “shortly,” according to
Ratterman. He said the launch of BATS Options is targeted for January
or February of next year, subject to approval by the Securities and
Exchange Commission.

BATS Options will join a growing
marketplace populated by seven options exchanges. Last month, 296
million equity options contracts changed hands, up 5.6 percent over the
previous June’s volume. The industry traded a record 3.3 billion equity
options contracts in 2008, an increase of 26.7 percent over 2007’s
record volume. This year is on pace to exceed last year’s volume.

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

LONDON & KANSAS CITY, Mo.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–BATS Europe, an innovative and technology-leading European Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF), plans to continue inverted pricing for the NYSE Euronext indices — CAC 40, AEX and BEL20 — and select exchange traded funds (ETFs) through July, and will also reduce the liquidity removal fee for those securities to 0.25 bps as of the 1^st of July.

In addition, following the successful launch of three pilot ETFs, BATS Europe is further expanding its stock universe by adding 20 actively traded ETFs. All ETF instruments will be included in the inverted pricing schedule for July.

In June, BATS Europe has set one-day market share records in the CAC 40 (7.55%), AEX (5.37%) and BEL20 (4.60%) as well as in major indices in London (6.40% in the FTSE 100) and Germany (5.65% in the DAX).

“We thank our participants for their tremendous response to our inverted pricing in June and are pleased to extend the special into July whilst offering further incentive for participants to trade their CAC 40, AEX, BEL20 and ETF order flow on our efficient and reliable trading platform,” said Mark Hemsley, CEO of BATS Europe.

BATS Europe recently recorded one-day notional value and overall market share highs in June of €1.24 billion traded with a 4.02% share of the European market.

BATS Exchange, BATS Europe’s sister company in the U.S. and the world’s third-largest securities exchange operator in terms of notional value traded, ran similar inverted pricing schedules in January 2007 and September 2007 and gained significant market share on both occasions, growth which continued after BATS Exchange returned to its normal pricing plan.

For more information, participants can contact the BATS Europe Trade Desk (+44-207-012-8901, TradeDeskEurope@batstrading.com) or their account manager.

About BATS

BATS Global Markets (BATS) is an innovative global financial markets technology company headquartered in the Kansas City, Mo., area with additional offices in New York and London. The BATS platform was launched in January 2006 and, operating as BATS Exchange, Inc. is one of the fastest growing, top tier equity markets in the United States. BATS serves the European market through its London based, FSA-authorised subsidiary, BATS Europe, which operates a Multilateral Trading Facility for European securities. The BATS platform is internally developed by a dedicated core team of market and technology professionals, catering to the needs of the broker-dealer and trading community. BATS … Making Markets Better.

June 23-25, 2009 – Hilton New York, New York City
This conference is the premier financial services technology event. The Conference addresses the rapidly-changing technology universe and how it can be better utilized to drive productivity, comply with regulatory requirements, and adapt to converging markets, products and investors. Three general sessions, 10 workshops, luncheon speaker and the Exhibit Hall have all been selected to provide information that is essential to managing technology in today’s challenging economic environment. Don’t Miss Out on the opportunity! Register Today at www.sifma.org/tmc2009

Proximity Hosting Can Only take you Half Way There

Zero latency is the optimal trading speed that all firms hope to achieve at some point. But until that can become a reality, there is a race to keep reducing latency from all aspects of the trading process. From the server to the messaging to the sending and receiving of data, each piece must be optimized to reach the goal of zero latency.  There are many avenues companies are looking at to reduce variables and risk to latency – one of those is proximity hosting.

There are data centers where the trader can actually collocate with the exchanges. For example, in Weehawken, NJ there is a data center that houses five major exchanges including: the American Stock Exchange, Philadelphia Stock Exchange, and BATS Trading. This is a way to ensure there is almost zero latency built into the trade to those exchanges. But it is not the complete puzzle. Even with proximity hosting to collocate within a data center that houses exchanges there are still external servers that play a role in the execution of the trade. These are the data feeds, the platforms, your proprietary content, and the messaging. Even the data centers that host the exchange as a simple cross connect, are rarely the only exchange a firm is trading on. So how do you close the gap?

While a firm may be trading a particular asset class and the majority of trades may be directed toward a single venue, the volumes and price-points on related exchanges play critical roles in execution decisions.  This means latency must be minimized from all data sources, not just the venue the majority of trades are placed on.  For instance, having the lowest latency on venue A, but being significantly behind the market on venue B or C could have disastrous impact on success of a trade decision.  It’s important then, to reach a delicate balance between the lowest latencies on all data sources and execution venues.

Where milliseconds and microseconds make a difference to the success of a trade strategy, the idea of Central Proximity hosting is to find locations that are central to most of the destination you need to access. There are a number of hosting locations within the NJ/NY trading area: Clifton, North Bergen, and Weehawken, NJ just to name a few that provide central proximity hosting. Central Proximity Hosting enables firms to locate within a few miles of all the locations and data a trade strategy needs for successful execution.  So that makes up half of the picture – how do you complete the race to speed-of-light transport?

The network provider does the rest. A Carrier is a good solution for the transport of data when latency and performance are important, but not critical. When latency reaches a level that’s critical to your success and your strategic advantage, you need a more agnostic approach to finding the best network. In working with each Carrier, they will provide you their “on net” best solutions between locations. This approach is not always the best solution for your specific needs. And it’s here that a network integrator offers you a measurable advantage comes into play.

The network provider that you partner with must be able to provide the lowest latency solutions for the metro ring and the longhaul. The network integrator you work with should be Carrier Agnostic, to ensure you are getting the optimal solution for your needs and not a solution based on the relationship an integrator has with a Carrier.   Some integrators, like CFN Services, can even go a step further. Beyond optimal solution recommendations for your specific strategy and requirements, they can also create new routes specific to your priorities. An integrator like CFN Services can actually utilize optimal spans of available fiber to create new fiber routes that do not exist along any single Carrier.

In the race to Alpha, the combination of Central Proximity Hosting coupled with the Low Latency Transport is key to your success.