UNX
Encyclopedia
UNX LLC is an independent trading technology firm and a registered agency broker
(member of FINRA/SIPC) that provides advanced electronic trading
technology solutions to a diverse client base which includes traditional asset managers
, pension fund
s, hedge fund
s and sell side execution desks
. UNX has offices in Burbank, California and New York, New York.
trading systems to institutional clients. In 2000, the company launched Basket Trading Center, a web based single stock and portfolio trading platform that provided clients access to North American execution venues. That year, UNX also launched its smart routing and tactical order routing engine. In 2002, UNX acquired Embarcadero Securities and launched the Metabook Execution Management System
. In 2009, UNX introduced the broker-neutral Catalyst platform and began the process of integrating trading algorithms of major broker-dealer
s into the UNX Marketplace.
Throughout 2010, UNX integrated equity algorithms and electronic trading
services from Credit Suisse
, Girard Securities, Goldman Sachs Electronic Trading
, Mizuho Securities, Rosenblatt Securities and UBS Investment Bank into its trading connectivity network available through the Catalyst Portal. In 2010, UNX further expanded its broker
network to include international equities trading and enhanced its connectivity network by adding algorithms and electronic trading services of JMP Securities and Sterne, Agee and Leach to its Broker Marketplace. In 2011, UNX collaborated with Titan Trading Analytics to provide behavioral research and trading strategies through the Catalyst Portal.
The Catalyst Portal offers an open-framework, customizable Execution Management System
that provides broker-neutral access to global equity markets
and supports single stock, pairs and portfolio trading capabilities. Clients can leverage trading algorithms
and liquidity pools of a wide array of broker-dealer
s.
Software Development Kit
Institutional clients, broker-dealer
s, stock exchange
s, Alternative Trading Systems
and independent vendors can use the Software Development Kit (SDK) to create/integrate products within the Catalyst Portal at their discretion. The core mandate of the UNX SDK is supposedly to expedite the coding effort for developers new to the Catalyst portal while allegedly affording maximum flexibility for those wishing to build complex yet efficient Catalyst Portal solutions.
UNX Network
The UNX Marketplace is a growing suite of products and services from broker-dealer
s, execution venues and independent vendors that have been integrated into the Catalyst Portal. The UNX Marketplace serves as a delivery mechanism to clients for broker algorithms, news, research, analytics, charting packages and other value added services. Some of the 3rd party vendor products offered through the UNX Marketplace are behavioral research and trading strategies from Titan Trading, ICAM Class Action Data and Bloomberg commands.
Tactical Order Routing Network
Tactical Order Routing (TOR) is UNX's order routing solution
that purportedly provides institutional clients and broker-dealers greater control of execution strategies through the Catalyst Portal, various Order Management System
s (OMS) or directly via FIX. Institutional clients and broker-dealer
s have can trade under their firm's MPID, or UNX's at dark
and visible venues.
Quantitative Analysis
The UNX research desk monitors statistically important events for all indexes and employs various techniques such as enhanced indexing
and low volatility event strategies to capture alpha.
In June 2011, NYSE Technologies and UNX entered into a partnership through which UNX becomes the first third-party provider to offer a service on the NYSE Technologies Community Platform’s cloud infrastructure. Through its Community Platform, NYSE Technologies will distribute UNX’s broker-neutral, open-technology front-end, Catalyst to deliver data and services from the NYSE Technologies’ product portfolio to financial services
firms. Services offered from inside the cloud and delivered through Catalyst would include global market data
, trade analytics, order and execution information tools, indications of interest (IOI)
, advertised trades (AT), and other data services, including trade and quote (TAQ) data, market imbalances and regulatory alerts.
INTL Trading
UNX and INTL Trading are collaborating to deliver customized electronic trading solutions for the Mexican and Latin American markets for distribution through the UNX Catalyst trading platform. As part of the partnership, INTL Trading is joining the multi-broker UNX Marketplace, where it will become a broker destination and will deploy Catalyst as its internal execution management system (EMS) as well as distribute Catalyst terminals to its institutional clients around the world. INTL will also integrate its proprietary intellectual property into Catalyst for its select client base using the Catalyst Software Development Kit (SDK).
3.5. Based on the Windows Presentation Foundation, Catalyst uses the Managed Add-In Framework to run all functionality as loadable add-ins, and it supports scripts in languages such as Ruby and Python through the use of the Dynamic Language Runtime.
Brokerage firm
A brokerage firm, or simply brokerage or broker in context, is a financial institution that facilitates the buying and selling of financial derivatives between a buyer and a seller...
(member of FINRA/SIPC) that provides advanced electronic trading
Electronic trading
Electronic trading, sometimes called etrading, is a method of trading securities , foreign exchange or financial derivatives electronically...
technology solutions to a diverse client base which includes traditional asset managers
Investment management
Investment management is the professional management of various securities and assets in order to meet specified investment goals for the benefit of the investors...
, pension fund
Pension fund
A pension fund is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income.Pension funds are important shareholders of listed and private companies. They are especially important to the stock market where large institutional investors dominate. The largest 300 pension funds collectively hold...
s, hedge fund
Hedge fund
A hedge fund is a private pool of capital actively managed by an investment adviser. Hedge funds are only open for investment to a limited number of accredited or qualified investors who meet criteria set by regulators. These investors can be institutions, such as pension funds, university...
s and sell side execution desks
Sell side
Sell side is a term used in the financial services industry. It is a general term that indicates a firm that sells investment services to asset management firms, typically referred to as the buy side, or corporate entities...
. UNX has offices in Burbank, California and New York, New York.
History
UNX was incorporated in 1999 as a provider of Direct Market AccessDirect Market Access
Direct market access ' is a term used in financial markets to describe electronic trading facilities that give investors wishing to trade in financial instruments a way to interact with the order book of an exchange. Normally, trading on the order book is restricted to broker-dealers and market...
trading systems to institutional clients. In 2000, the company launched Basket Trading Center, a web based single stock and portfolio trading platform that provided clients access to North American execution venues. That year, UNX also launched its smart routing and tactical order routing engine. In 2002, UNX acquired Embarcadero Securities and launched the Metabook Execution Management System
Execution management system
Execution management systems are software applications utilized by institutional traders designed to display market data and provide seamless access to trading destinations fast for the purpose of transacting orders. They contain broker provided and independent algorithms, global market data and...
. In 2009, UNX introduced the broker-neutral Catalyst platform and began the process of integrating trading algorithms of major broker-dealer
Broker-dealer
A broker-dealer is a term used in United States financial services regulations. It is a natural person, a company or other organization that trades securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers....
s into the UNX Marketplace.
Throughout 2010, UNX integrated equity algorithms and electronic trading
Electronic trading
Electronic trading, sometimes called etrading, is a method of trading securities , foreign exchange or financial derivatives electronically...
services from Credit Suisse
Credit Suisse
The Credit Suisse Group AG is a Swiss multinational financial services company headquartered in Zurich, with more than 250 branches in Switzerland and operations in more than 50 countries.-History:...
, Girard Securities, Goldman Sachs Electronic Trading
Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is an American multinational bulge bracket investment banking and securities firm that engages in global investment banking, securities, investment management, and other financial services primarily with institutional clients...
, Mizuho Securities, Rosenblatt Securities and UBS Investment Bank into its trading connectivity network available through the Catalyst Portal. In 2010, UNX further expanded its broker
Broker
A broker is a party that arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller, and gets a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal...
network to include international equities trading and enhanced its connectivity network by adding algorithms and electronic trading services of JMP Securities and Sterne, Agee and Leach to its Broker Marketplace. In 2011, UNX collaborated with Titan Trading Analytics to provide behavioral research and trading strategies through the Catalyst Portal.
Products and Services
Catalyst Execution Management SystemThe Catalyst Portal offers an open-framework, customizable Execution Management System
Execution management system
Execution management systems are software applications utilized by institutional traders designed to display market data and provide seamless access to trading destinations fast for the purpose of transacting orders. They contain broker provided and independent algorithms, global market data and...
that provides broker-neutral access to global equity markets
Stock market
A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
and supports single stock, pairs and portfolio trading capabilities. Clients can leverage trading algorithms
Algorithmic trading
In electronic financial markets, algorithmic trading or automated trading, also known as algo trading, black-box trading or robo trading, is the use of electronic platforms for entering trading orders with an algorithm deciding on aspects of the order such as the timing, price, or quantity of the...
and liquidity pools of a wide array of broker-dealer
Broker-dealer
A broker-dealer is a term used in United States financial services regulations. It is a natural person, a company or other organization that trades securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers....
s.
Software Development Kit
Institutional clients, broker-dealer
Broker-dealer
A broker-dealer is a term used in United States financial services regulations. It is a natural person, a company or other organization that trades securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers....
s, stock exchange
Stock exchange
A stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...
s, Alternative Trading Systems
Alternative Trading Systems
Alternative Trading Systems , are United States Securities and Exchange Commission approved non-exchange trading venues specifically designed to match buyers and sellers to find counterparties for transactions, instead of trading large blocks of shares on the normal exchange, a practice that can...
and independent vendors can use the Software Development Kit (SDK) to create/integrate products within the Catalyst Portal at their discretion. The core mandate of the UNX SDK is supposedly to expedite the coding effort for developers new to the Catalyst portal while allegedly affording maximum flexibility for those wishing to build complex yet efficient Catalyst Portal solutions.
UNX Network
The UNX Marketplace is a growing suite of products and services from broker-dealer
Broker-dealer
A broker-dealer is a term used in United States financial services regulations. It is a natural person, a company or other organization that trades securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers....
s, execution venues and independent vendors that have been integrated into the Catalyst Portal. The UNX Marketplace serves as a delivery mechanism to clients for broker algorithms, news, research, analytics, charting packages and other value added services. Some of the 3rd party vendor products offered through the UNX Marketplace are behavioral research and trading strategies from Titan Trading, ICAM Class Action Data and Bloomberg commands.
Tactical Order Routing Network
Tactical Order Routing (TOR) is UNX's order routing solution
Solution
In chemistry, a solution is a homogeneous mixture composed of only one phase. In such a mixture, a solute is dissolved in another substance, known as a solvent. The solvent does the dissolving.- Types of solutions :...
that purportedly provides institutional clients and broker-dealers greater control of execution strategies through the Catalyst Portal, various Order Management System
Order management system
An order management system, or OMS, is a computer software system used in a number of industries for order entry and processing.- Electronic commerce and catalogers :...
s (OMS) or directly via FIX. Institutional clients and broker-dealer
Broker-dealer
A broker-dealer is a term used in United States financial services regulations. It is a natural person, a company or other organization that trades securities for its own account or on behalf of its customers....
s have can trade under their firm's MPID, or UNX's at dark
Dark liquidity
In finance, dark pools of liquidity also referred to as dark liquidity or simply dark pools is trading volume or liquidity that is not openly available to the public. The bulk of these represent large trades by financial institutions that are offered away from public exchanges so that trades are...
and visible venues.
Quantitative Analysis
The UNX research desk monitors statistically important events for all indexes and employs various techniques such as enhanced indexing
Enhanced Indexing
In finance, enhanced indexing is a catch-all term that describes strategies employed to outperform traditional indexing. Enhanced indexing attempts to generate modest excess returns compared to index funds and other passive management techniques.-Features:...
and low volatility event strategies to capture alpha.
Partnerships
NYSE TechnologiesIn June 2011, NYSE Technologies and UNX entered into a partnership through which UNX becomes the first third-party provider to offer a service on the NYSE Technologies Community Platform’s cloud infrastructure. Through its Community Platform, NYSE Technologies will distribute UNX’s broker-neutral, open-technology front-end, Catalyst to deliver data and services from the NYSE Technologies’ product portfolio to financial services
Financial services
Financial services refer to services provided by the finance industry. The finance industry encompasses a broad range of organizations that deal with the management of money. Among these organizations are credit unions, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, consumer finance companies,...
firms. Services offered from inside the cloud and delivered through Catalyst would include global market data
Market data
In finance, market data is quote and trade-related data associated with equity, fixed-income, financial derivatives, currency, and other investment instruments. Market data is numerical price data, reported from trading venues, such as stock exchanges...
, trade analytics, order and execution information tools, indications of interest (IOI)
Indication of interest
An indication of interest , sometimes expression of interest , is an expression in finance that demonstrates a buyer's non-binding interest in buying a security in the stock market, often before it is available for purchase...
, advertised trades (AT), and other data services, including trade and quote (TAQ) data, market imbalances and regulatory alerts.
INTL Trading
UNX and INTL Trading are collaborating to deliver customized electronic trading solutions for the Mexican and Latin American markets for distribution through the UNX Catalyst trading platform. As part of the partnership, INTL Trading is joining the multi-broker UNX Marketplace, where it will become a broker destination and will deploy Catalyst as its internal execution management system (EMS) as well as distribute Catalyst terminals to its institutional clients around the world. INTL will also integrate its proprietary intellectual property into Catalyst for its select client base using the Catalyst Software Development Kit (SDK).
Technology
UNX built the Catalyst Portal using the Microsoft .NET Framework.NET Framework
The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
3.5. Based on the Windows Presentation Foundation, Catalyst uses the Managed Add-In Framework to run all functionality as loadable add-ins, and it supports scripts in languages such as Ruby and Python through the use of the Dynamic Language Runtime.