InvestFlex Partners With Progress Software to Deliver Customized Algorithmic Options Trading Strategies

SOURCE:  Progress Software

Progress Software , a leading software provider that enables enterprises to be operationally responsive, today announced that InvestFlex, a leading trading systems software provider and systems integration consulting firm for the Brazilian financial services market, has selected the number one algorithmic trading solution — the Progress(R) Apama(R) platform — as the execution platform for their cutting-edge FlexScan trading solution. As a result, InvestFlex customers will have access to the Progress Apama Capital Markets platform, enabling low-latency trading with customized algorithmic strategies. This partnership will further increase the number of clients using the Apama platform in Brazil, where the company is already the market leader.

InvestFlex will integrate the Apama Capital Markets platform with its FlexScan solution to develop and execute options trading strategies. Co-location with Brazil’s BM&FBOVESPA, one of the world’s largest financial exchanges, enables traders to automate and execute thousands of trades per second with ultra-low latency.

FlexScan provides traders with over 100 predefined strategies for trading options on the BM&FBOVESPA in real-time, and includes analytics that enable investors to evaluate opportunities against their risk profiles. The platform simplifies entry into the complex options market for individual investors, and has already recorded more than15,000 registered users and approximately 4,000 uses per month since its launch earlier this year.

By embedding the FlexScan strategies into the Apama platform, investors can develop trading strategies more quickly and easily. Equally importantly, the intuitive business tools within the Apama platform enable traders to devise their own algorithms without the need for IT programmers.

Luis Ermel, Director, InvestFlex, said: “Our customers, who are traders — not programmers, increasingly need solutions that help them create customized trading strategies and execute these trades quickly and easily. We evaluated a number of trading platforms; however, the Progress Apama platform was superior due to its powerful, proven functionality. Equally important to us was Progress’ leadership position in the algorithmic and high frequency trading market worldwide, coupled with their strong local presence. Our clients are now able to gain a significant competitive advantage by monitoring markets in real time and developing algorithmic trading strategies to exploit new opportunities.”

The Brazilian capital markets have experienced massive growth. Between 2008 and 2009, the options contracts traded on the Bovespa jumped 80 percent, from 235,000 to 424,000. The new FlexScan solution, powered by Apama technology, has the potential to attract 50,000 new users, and process over 2,000 trades per day by the end of 2011.

According to John Bates, chief technology officer (CTO), Progress Software: “The Progress Apama platform is the number one capital markets platform in Brazil for algorithmic trading and high frequency trading. Progress has the largest client base in capital markets comprising top sell-side firms, buy-side firms, hedge funds and regulators. Our partnership with InvestFlex will expand this market position significantly.”

The Progress Apama platform is the only platform that can deliver all the complex event processing capabilities required to gain the full benefits of real-time capital markets solutions – with sub-millisecond latency. First, it has a powerful complex event processing (CEP) engine; second, a rich graphical dashboard; third, event data management technology that captures and replays event streams and allow you to conduct root-cause analysis and pre-flight testing of algorithms; fourth, pre-built analytics to help monitor the key performance indicators (KPIs) of a business; and fifth, adapters to event data sources, including messaging, databases, and industry-specific data feeds such as market data. This enables both IT and traders to be more operationally responsive to changing market conditions with real-time data analysis and visibility into enormous amounts of events.

Progress Software is recognized as the market leader with the largest client base in capital markets that comprise more than 150 deployments at top sell-side firms, buy-side firms, hedge funds and regulators, with companies such as ANZ, RBC, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, FSA (Financial Services Authority) and ING.

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