Massachusetts-based Charles River Developement is to provide users of its Investment Management System (IMS) with direct access to execution services from Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley.
Charles River says CSFB's Advanced Execution Services (AES) will enable investment managers to execute trades via FIX directly from the IMS platform using the same suite of automated, algorithmic trading strategies developed by the bank's team of quantitative analysts and traders.
Users of the platform will also be able to place and execute trades via FIX using Morgan Stanley's proprietary algorithmic benchmark execution strategies (MS-BXS). Traders can use these automated algorithms to increase trade efficiency and minimise market impact while maintaining complete control of the execution process.
MS-BXS is a collection of execution strategies that utilise proprietary algorithms to formulate dynamic 'trade plans' relative to a selected benchmark. Each benchmark strategy attempts to minimise the shortfall vs. that chosen benchmark by optimising the tradeoff between market impact and market risk.
The vendor says it has embedded the services in its applications to make it easier for portfolio managers and traders to execute FIX-based trades via both MS-BXS and AES without leaving the IMS.