The TRADE 2018 APAC Algorithmic Trading Survey | Page 2

[ A PA C A L G O R I T H M I C T R A D I N G S U R V E Y ] Taking centre stage The trend of improving performance for APAC algorithmic trading shows no sign of slowing down according to this year’s survey. A s The TRADE’s annu- al Asia-Pacific (APAC) algorithmic trading survey has shown in recent years, the region has been gaining ground on Europe and North America to the point where distinct differences are clearly noticeable among the results. While Europe, and to some extent North America, have grap- pled with the regulatory burden of MiFID II, the APAC region has largely – although not entirely – escaped these burdens and focused on furthering quality instead. This trend of continuous levels of improvement being displayed in Asian algorithmic trading is evident in Figure 1, which shows the scores provided by this year’s responses over the past five years across 12 areas of algorithm functionality. Respondents to this year’s survey scored algo providers higher than any of the previous five years across ever category, with an overall survey-wide average of 5.81. This compares favourably to the results of The TRADE’s global algo trading surveys conducted earlier this year, which scored an average of 5.57 although respondents were Figure 1: Rating of algorithm performance 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 Improving trader productivity 5.98 5.64 5.60 5.26 5.61 Reducing market impact 5.82 5.56 5.40 5.22 5.51 Execution consistency 5.87 5.57 5.48 5.26 5.53 Cost 5.69 5.58 5.15 5.18 5.56 Speed 5.87 5.63 5.19 5.26 5.64 Anonymity 5.84 5.68 5.62 5.37 5.58 Price improvement 5.75 5.40 5.41 4.99 5.36 Customisation capabilities 5.70 5.13 5.17 5.23 5.29 Ease of use 5.98 5.61 5.50 5.26 5.69 Internal crossing 5.50 5.25 5.05 4.97 5.41 Execution consulting 5.88 5.58 5.70 5.25 5.60 Customer support 5.80 5.65 5.57 5.41 5.72 90 // TheTrade // Winter 2018 more likely to be critical due to the pressures of MiFID II in Europe and, to some extent North America than in APAC. While none of the functional- ities reviewed in this year’s survey scored as high as 6.00 – both the improving trader productivity and ease of use categories were closest to doing so, each being scored 5.98 by respondents – while none of the categories scored lower than 5.50. The largest year-on-year score increases came in the aforemen- tioned categories, as well as for customisation capabilities which increased from 5.13 last year to 5.70 this year. Clearly the efforts being made by algo providers to allow users to modify and tailor their products to fit particular trading strategies, particularly relevant during times of regulatory and geopolitical upheaval. There were incremental improvements in the cost, customer support and anonymity categories, although not enough to cause a serious shift in the overall scores for these func- tionalities. Client support and execution consulting scored highly and in- line with the survey average, as did the reducing market impact, execu- tion consistency and speed catego- ries. While there were no specific areas of stand-out performance in this year’s survey results, it appears that APAC respondents are gener-