The desire of asset managers, hedge funds and corporates to closely monitor and control their order execution is driving increased appetite for algo strategies in foreign exchange, according to Kim Simms, product manager for FX algorithms at UBS.
“Many of our clients want to specify a specific set of parameters to tightly control the execution of their orders in a way that is simply not practical when trading manually. Sometimes this is a matter of specifying parameters pre-agreed with their clients, but often we find clients adjust parameters several times during an order execution. The ability for a client to modify their order is crucial for firms who want to get the best of their ability to read the market on a macro level and an algorithm’s ability to act on a micro level.” says Simms.
“Delivering algos is an intensive process—we don’t just enable clients and forget them. We work closely with clients to help them understand why an algo performed the way it did and advise them on how they can adjust parameters to improve their execution.” says Simms. UBS has been offering their algo suite to select clients through their single-dealer platform, Neo, Bloomberg and FXConnect since 2013