[ A PA C
A L G O
S U R V E Y ]
Fig 2: IMPORTANCE
Feature
% % % % % %
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Price Improvement 9.85 10.48 8.76 9.23 8.53 8.50
Consistency of Execution 10.50 8.75 10.05 8.86 11.37 14.29
Customisation 6.08 7.40 6.17 5.78 6.16 5.44
Ease-of-Use 14.41 11.22 11.20 11.93 11.78 13.61
Anonymity 11.39 11.59 10.88 11.44 8.76 10.20
Higher Speed Lower Latency 7.50 5.86 4.49 7.50 5.82 6.32
Increase Trader Productivity 10.23 12.70 10.63 10.82 10.55 10.78
Internal Crossing 8.72 12.27 8.15 5.54 7.01 6.58
Lower Commission Rates/Cost 9.13 8.32 8.55 8.61 8.48 6.12
Reduced Market Impact 10.53 10.67 11.45 8.73 11.78 10.97
Execution Consulting 1.66 0.74 3.49 5.78 3.59 4.08
Client Support N/A N/A 6.47 5.78 6.16 6.12
Assets Under Management Average
Providers Average
Providers Average
Providers Average
Providers Average
Providers Average
Providers
($ billion) 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Not Answered 1.97 2.07 2.03 2.83 1.93 3.03
Up to 0.25 2.25 1.75 1.87 3.02 2.73 1.83
0.25 - 0.50 2.50 3.33 3.33 1.45 2.33 2.61
0.50 - 1.00 3.82 4.25 2.71 1.67 2.01 2.82
1.00 - 10.0 3.87 5.33 3.83 3.42 3.93 3.31
10.0 - 50.0 4.41 5.11 4.16 4.72 3.40 3.38
Greater than 50.0 5.76 5.41 5.34 5.01 3.67 3.81
Fig 3: AVERAGE NUMBER OF PROVIDERS
increased and a high level of anonymity has come to be
seen as routine expectation of any trading algorithm.
Execution consulting was the highest scoring area
last year at 5.70, but this fell back this year to a still
respectable 5.58, while client support increased from
5.57 to 5.65 over the same period. Both these areas
have been of crucial concern in recent years due to
the aforementioned commodification of algos, which
means providing high level service and in-depth con-
sulting are more important than ever before.
That Asian providers seem to already be providing a
high-quality execution consulting service bodes well
for the future, though they have set themselves a high
bar. Similarly, client support is set to become more im-
portant in the future as buy-siders become much more
selective about their algo providers, again driven by
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