Financial Football, GTS and ATG
Today the European Championship will kick off in France. The Netherlands decided to participate in World Cups only. Saturday the championship will host matches with the national teams of Albania, Wales, Slovakia and Liechtenstein.
More interesting teams show up in the small town of Abcoude. Eighteen teams will battle at the Financial Football Tournament. As always with great weather and sharp organization by Ferry Boekholt from Bennington.
New team from Telstra
New this edition is a team from Telstra. The brokers Lynx and DeGiro employ enough people to send two teams to the tournament. Sponsors are Eurex and Euroclear.
IMC and Euronext couldn’t assemble a team this year. Market Wizards had to attend a wedding in Belgium (cheers!). The bookmakers give Optiver, Eurex (both of them) and EEX the best odds to win the title, with Telstra as an outsider.
- Here’s the playing schedule (pdf).
* Update : Lynx win the title
As usual it was a wonderful day and great organized tournament. At the end of the day, Lynx won the title after beating Eurex UK in the final. Congrats! It was the second time the broker wins the tournament. Two years ago won after a penalty shoot-out against Eurex Frankfurt.
GTS Europe closed
GTS stands for Global Trading Systems. You can’t make up a more generic name than this. Luckily, they are better at trading than making up company names. The HFT firm is a serious player in the business, trading 3-5% of the US cash equity market. It’s also the largest market maker on the NYSE Floor.
Europe was a bridge too far. Based in London, GTS shared an office with Tibra. Same game room. Tibra is only active in options, GTS only trading cash. Tibra can enjoy the game room all by themselves again. GTS has shut down the European office.
Jamal Tarazi leaves
The European head of the firm, Jamal Tarazi, leaves within a year. Mr Tarazi used to work for Virtu and it’s predecessor Madison Tyler. GTS says the firm remains committed to “growing” its business in the region (link, $).
Sure. That’s a remark to save the reputation. The office is closed, really (err.. update, there is confusion about it). Of course they can continue trading in Europe for a while from their US office. Until MiFID 2 starts, that is.
Two years ago RGM left the old continent as well.
* Update on GTS
Another source believes GTS still has 15 people in the London office. A spokesman from GTS stated the presence in Europe is still “strong”. However, he wasn’t able to say something clear like “GTS has more than ten people working in the office in Londen“. Some people insist the office is closed, others believe the opposite.
The public relations company hired by GTS only contributed to the confusion with vague statements. The current best bet is the firm has reduced the office to just a few network engineers – and moving to a smaller place.
ATG stake sold
Speaking of generic names, Algorithmic Trading Group. Recently the majority shareholder Tom Voûte announced to retire in Abcoude (popular town). There has been a lot of interest from a wide range of entities. Half of the 87% stake in ATG is sold.
Past winners Football Tournament
This is the list of the last 12 winners.
| Year | Winner |
|---|---|
| 2015 | Optiver |
| 2014 | Lynx |
| 2013 | Eurex |
| 2012 | EEX |
| 2011 | IMC |
| 2010 | 323 Trading |
| 2009 | KBC Bank |
| 2008 | Eurex |
| 2007 | Euronext |
| 2006 | Market Wizards |
| 2005 | Fortis |
| 2004 | Optiver |
Who won?
Lynx won
Lynx won. Eurex impressed. Flow had fun. All Options played pretty decent. Optiver as well. Scrocca was the talk of the town (one retarded player got was sent away after trying to choke his opponent).
What? Scrocca into a fight again?? Two years ago a kid in their team did the same thing.
People talk to each other at the football-tournament, not only with colleagues?!
where’s a list with the overall result?
I can’t find it on brokerdealer.nl