Ryan Moroney is CEO of CQG.
What were the key theme(s) for your business in 2023?
A number of themes were central to our success in 2023. They include reliability, our CQG Execution Technologies offering and our continued strength in partnerships.
When the markets and geopolitical events are volatile, our customers know they can turn to us as a hub for stable, reliable platforms and tools. This was another year of great challenges, and our users have repeatedly commended the reliability of our technology, regardless of market volumes and swings.
Our comprehensive suite of exclusive execution technologies enables clients to leverage algorithmic trading tools, and it’s clear that our clients have really been seeing the value of the offering in 2023 as we see volumes grow and a broader range of customer types using them.
Throughout 2023, we continued to add new partnerships with futures commission merchants (FCMs), brokers, exchanges and other technology providers. For more than four decades, we have been building trust with other leaders in the industry, and we’re proud that so many leading firms view us as a reliable partner, for both our robust technology and the fact that they know we’ll do what we say we’re going to do.
What trends did you see among traders who use CQG and your partners in 2023?
Trends we’ve seen among CQG users and our partners include continued use of the tried-and-true paths of technical analysis for trading success; pursuit of new innovations that can help with trading, such as new markets, new contract types and other new offerings; and further uptake of mobile usage as our customers are constantly connected, wherever they go.
What was the highlight of 2023?
Certainly one of the great highlights of the year for us was the November acquisition of CQG by a group of our senior executives from Tim Mather, who founded our company in 1980. This was an incredible outcome for all of our stakeholders, ensuring stability, leadership continuity, control over our own destiny and continued innovation to capture opportunities in an ever-changing market environment. This has been extremely well received by our employees, clients and partners alike, and we’re excited about what the future holds.
What are your expectations for 2024?
Front-office tools and technology platforms like those CQG offers will be essential in 2024. I believe there is a shift taking place in the FCM space toward finding ways to help traders be more successful in their trading. For a few years, the pendulum swung in the direction of deliverables such as infrastructure, speed, access and back-office support. We’re seeing that pendulum swing back to the front office, with an emphasis on position trading, the advisory role of a broker and better decision-making tools, to name a few. Here’s how I see that playing out amongst some of our customer segments:
Retail: A significant focus for retail brokers will be shifting their emphasis from education and training to providing better tools, technology and insights – and will look to do this in a clever way – to help make the retail trader more successful. This benefits the brokerage firms by prompting their clients to trade more and stay connected.
Commercial: The commercial customer’s primary interaction is typically through their introducing broker (IB), and I believe IB’s role as an advisor will become increasingly important. This new approach opens the door for the IB to recommend a broader array of trading ideas, beyond futures as a hedge, and provide more market commentary and insights. I believe this will lead to increased interest in options and cash markets as well as basis trading, to name a few.
Professional and Proprietary Traders: Position trading, influenced by technical analysis, is becoming really important again. We expect to see these segments demand more data and smarter tools in order to place smarter trades. They’ll be looking to expand their trading into new asset classes and conduct more cross-asset trading. While we believe they already have what they need to successfully enter a trade, the algo and AI tools we’ve been developing can help give them what they need to successfully exit as well.
