FIX Gateway

As the structure of the markets evolve and the pace of trading increases, firms are looking to leverage more Direct Market Access (DMA) Financial Information Exchange (FIX) tools to take greater control of the trading process.  On the buy-side, hedge funds and proprietary trading firms increasingly depend on DMA FIX providers to access trading venues directly without the latency of going through their brokerage firm(s)’ infrastructure; providing them anonymity in the market, increased edge in execution speed, and cost savings.  

High-velocity trading firms running black-box trading models typically host their equipment at their DMA FIX provider’s facility.  Not only must hosting facilities provide the latest hardware and telecom technology, but they must also reside within close proximity of major market centers to be considered viable solutions. 

The industry is at a crossroads regarding current brokerage and vendor DMA FIX providers; prior generation gateways no longer meet the market’s evolving requirements for an ultra-fast, multi-asset, multi-broker, hosted solution.  A modern technology approach that capitalizes on the latest advancements is required for today’s markets.

Recognizing the need for an entirely new generation of trading technology, Mantara has developed the expressWay™ FIX Gateway, to offer clients a reliable, cost-effective, multi-asset solution at unsurpassed speeds—all, fully hosted at Mantara’s state-of-the-art, high-throughput data center.

FIX Gateway Overview

A functionally-rich new FIX Gateway engineered from the ground up to meet new market requirements, expressWay’s FIX Gateway design centers on providing the high-speed performance, reliability and scalability demanded by today’s firms.

Application Features

Co-Location

  • Hosted, fully-redundant, service bureau-based DMA

 

Flexible FIX deployment

  • FIX API supports FIX 4.0 thru 5.0
  • FIX API normalizes the complex mappings of tags for all routing venues for simple integration and deployment
  • Rules-based routing tables for building automated trading strategies of inbound order flow
  • Real-time DMA multi-broker routing capabilities
  • Supports baskets, pairs, and allocations

 

Speed, Reliability, and Connectivity

  • Provides extremely low latency, high capacity for trading in multiple asset classes
  • Offers a multitude of connectivity for routing to exchanges, ECNs, dark pools, brokers, algo providers

 

Comprehensive Solution for DMA

  • Integrated with expressWay’s user front-end, monitor and control order flow, check order status, view execution history, cancel orders
  • Integrated with xWAY™ smart router for accessing liquidity across market centers
  • Tightly coupled with RiskMaster™ for pre-trade risk management controls utilizing Mantara’s Market Data Ticker Plant for accurate pricing of order validation
  • Fully compliant with Reg SHO and Reg NMS rules, includes full audit of order lifecycle capabilities for compliance reporting i.e.:
  • Order Audit Trail System (OATS)
  • Order Trail System (OTS)
  • Best Executions (Sec Rule 606, 605)reports

 

FIX Gateway Benefits

Performance

state-of-the-art hardware and network equipment; software pipeline architecture executed exclusively in C++, and applied multithreading techniques on multi-core machines.

Reliability

software, hardware and network redundancy.  System supports a multi-pod architecture in active/active mode.  Using proactive monitoring and reporting facilities, problems detected immediately and acted on before becoming critical.

Flexibility in Deployment

Highly configurable to readily add new routing venues and order types.  FIX transaction protocol readily facilitates integration between systems.

Sell-Side Benefits

FIX Gateway provides sell-side firms with centralized, integrated entitlements control to enable oversight of client trading activity.  Sell-side firms offering their clients sponsor access can set controls limiting venues and order types on a firm-by-firm basis, plus set various combinations of MPIDs and clearing arrangements for use by the sponsored firms.

Integrated with expressWay’s user front-end, sell-side firms supporting buy-side partners, can monitor routing connectivity and use various blotter functionality for trouble shooting problems with orders and executions.

Buy-Side Benefits

Hedge Funds trading across sponsoring brokers benefit from the FIX Gateway’s real-time multi-broker routing capabilities, and can now route orders directly to trading venues choosing the appropriate broker’s MPID, order-by-order, using a single FIX session.

Together with the full suite of expressWay trading functionality, expressWay’s FIX Gateway provides a powerful, integrated solution, for executing complex, multi-asset, broker-neutral strategies at blazing speeds.  Come discover why today’s leading buy- and sell-side participants choose expressWay as the technology winner for securities trading.