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Free market data at TOM

7 comments / May 20, 2015

The Order MachineEffective today, TOM will give free access to their real-time derivatives market data to clients of Interactive Brokers and the Dutch brokers working with IB’s platform (Lynx, Todays, Traders Only). Other brokers already offered the data for free. According to the press release, investors can save as much as €37 per month. Nice – but it’s not entirely true.

Some newspapers are happy broadcasting press releases, no questions asked (nl). In reality, nobody ever paid for TOM’s market data. It came for free with Euronext’s data.

Regular investors may save €2

Regular investors will pay €2 a month for Euronext data bundle at IB. You’ll be able to see the order book for stocks and the best bid/offer for derivatives. Only if you’re interested in the depth of the order book for derivatives, you will have to shell out €37 euro a month.

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Put options on Bill Ackman

8 comments / May 19, 2015

Euronext will introduce options on Bill Ackman’s hedgefund Pershing Square. His hedgefund did an IPO on the Euronext Amsterdam last October. Can’t remember why exactly he decided to go for Amsterdam. Maybe wanted to open the exchange during his holiday trip.

As of May 29th options on Pershing Square Holding will be open for trading.

Options traded in US dollars

The Pershing Square stock is traded in US dollars. This means the options and strike prices will be traded in US dollars as well. However, it remains to be seen whether market makers will provide liquidity in these options (code PSH). Susquehanna will sign as usual, but can’t be called a committed market maker. Risk of empty screens.

Hedging your hedgefund stock with options sounds overly cautious. I bet good old Carl Icahn would be very interested in building positions in Pershing Square options.

  • Details from Euronext here
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HFT on TOM : whodunnit?

22 comments / May 17, 2015

Argos RadioHalf a year ago I reported on the clash between DeGiro and Binck, with respect to the not-so-smart order router from TOM. See DeGiro trashes TOM and Flash Boy Binck ignores law of holes. Few months later TOM decided to shut down their stock trading venue. Assumed that would be the end of the story.

However, great news! Radio show Argos  (nl) got interested in the matter. Somebody read a book from Michael Lewis, and without prior knowledge about the stock market they started investigating. Had a coffee with both of them, and to be honest the result looks good. They managed to get a story about HFT trading even my mum will understand. See below for the radio show with “visuals” on youtube. It’s still only in Dutch, understood the English subtitles will arrive next friday. (update : arrived, see below)

So, whodunnit?

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Financial Football Tournament #13

9 comments / May 12, 2015

Wat een trofeeTime for the famous Financial Football tournament. Saturday June 6th the event will be held again. As always the 7-a-side matches will be played just outside Amsterdam in the little city of Abcoude, on the fields of FC Abcoude.

It’s amazing the tournament has never been skipped in the last twelve years, somehow Bennington (Ferry Boekholt) has been able to find sponsors every year (remember it was once called All Options Football Tournament?). The sponsors this year are Euroclear and Eurex.

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Why HIQ’s losses are great

20 comments / May 8, 2015

HiQ is too smallLast month HIQ Invest Market Neutral Fund lost an astonishing 12,1%. That’s even worse than the month of March (-8,56%). Losing over 20% in two months is nothing short of a disaster for hedge funds. The results over 2014 haven’t been very positive either (-15,62%). Troubled times ahead for the sister of DeGiro (same owners).

Always look on the bright side of life

However, management looks on the bright side of life. Less is more. The fund has seen investors taking the money from the table – and combined with the losses the fund is a lot smaller than it used to be. Which is great in opinion of the fund managers. After all, a small car is easier to drive.

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