Chris Martins
Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:01:07 -0500
Progress Apama, along with our system integration partner, Detica, has been chosen by Turquoise, the European multi-lateral trading facility, to deliver a real-time market surveillance system. Turquoise is funded by nine of Europe's largest banks and is essentially a new electronic stock exchange that, when it goes live this year, will compete with traditional equities venues like the London Stock Exchange.
Explicit in the announcement is how important market surveillance can be in helping to ensure an orderly market that traders can trust to be fair to all participants. Such confidence helps promote liquidity, which is the lifeblood of any trading venue. Implicit in the announcement is the value of CEP-powered, real-time market surveillance in driving the rapid detection of potential patterns of abuse or other questionable behavior. As Apama observers will note, this is the second selection of Apama and Detica for a real-time market surveillance system. Last year, the same vendor team was chosen by the British regulator, the FSA.
There has been much press in the last week regarding the problems that can occur when proper procedures – and technology – are not in place to monitor trading behavior. The situations are different - the problems at the French bank Société Genéralé appear to involve the Futures trades of a single trader, while Turquoise will be an equities exchange. But billions in losses certainly shine a bright light on the value of being able to monitor activities and respond quickly, regardless of the financial instruments involved. And though the motivations might differ, the value is there whether the monitoring is done by individual firms, by the trading exchanges, or by regulatory authorities.


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