Stephen Cavoli is Global Head of Execution Services at Virtu Financial.
What were the key theme(s) for your business in 2024?
Every successful firm begins and ends with a great product supported by great people. Our key themes remain consistent: We prioritize client needs as the foundation of product development, ensuring the solutions we build align with client workflows and expectations. Wherever possible, these solutions are global and multi-asset, covering the entire trade life cycle.
The key themes varied by region. In APAC, the focus was on India, where we developed collocated trading infrastructure to address client requirements and support the market’s rapid growth and evolving demands. In MENA, we refined algorithms to align with the region’s unique market structure and advanced the launch of a block trading venue to support institutions and large trade executions.
The key themes also varied by product. For our Triton EMS offering, there was a large focus on meeting clients’ needs for multi-asset capabilities within the EMS and deepening integration with third-party systems. The key themes for our data analytics platform were strengthening multi-asset functionality including the addition of TCA for Fixed Income Derivatives and enhancing API access to enable clients to bring trading analytics “in-house.” We also released a more granular pre- and post-trade transaction cost models (SCE and DyCE) in response to client requests. Our global FIX Network expanded by connecting with new banks, brokers, and dealers, as we focus on delivering FIX Network services that simplify client workflows and boost efficiency.
What trends are getting underway that people may not know about but will be important?
We’re seeing more and more desks adopt a single trading infrastructure. This trend is a long-time coming and it’s just begun to tip. As desks migrate to a unified trading infrastructure that supports the entire trade life cycle across all asset classes globally, it simplifies operations, reduces costs, and ensures consistency in execution and post-trade services.
We’re also seen a resurgence of demand for new sources of liquidity. Specifically, clients want algos that identify and interact with these incremental liquidity sources in sophisticated and transparent ways.
What are your clients’ pain points, and how have they changed from one year ago?
Clients are increasingly focused on getting the most out of their commission dollars through quality alpha generating research, navigating global regulations and workflows, optimizing commission spend, demanding better value and cost transparency. We’ve seen more clients embrace our global, multi-asset trading and analytics platform which allows clients to streamline external relationships and internal workflows, saving time, reducing operational risk, and increasing wallet purchasing power.
The demand for intelligent and transparent liquidity access has evolved. Previously, the focus was on static routing and spread positioning. Now, clients demand sophisticated routing decisions and access to unique liquidity pools. Achieving this requires a trading infrastructure capable of consuming vast amounts of market data and making real-time decisions based on specific trading conditions. Brokers must now explain algorithmic decisions with transparency and a clear decision-making rationale. Descriptive statistics are no longer sufficient; clients expect causal analysis to justify order routing choices.
Related to the evolving demand for intelligent and transparent execution and workflow tools, as trading across asset classes becomes increasingly electronic, clients’ requests for more tailored support engagement has increased. Tighter collaboration with clients is mandatory to properly understand their desired outcomes which is highly correlated to being able to solve real-time issues.
