Hurdles and Rewards - High Frequency, Quant and Algorithmic Trading in Asia (Opalesque Hong Kong Roundtable)

New York, NY, June 10, 2012 --(PR.com)-- It has not gone unnoticed that algorithmic trading has taken a large portion of the market volumes in the U.S. and Europe, a development that is about to be mirrored in Asia. While quant trading, high frequency trading and algorithmic trading are in the end all quantitative, they are often talked about as the same thing. High frequency trading (HFT) is a subset of quantitative trading, and in fact many low frequency trading strategies are traded via algorithms, which distribute orders in slices. Even minimal execution timings aren't just loved by the HFT ambassadors, also low frequency traders may be interested in reducing their execution to 50 milliseconds or even less.

Most high frequency trading consists of market making and spreading and will therefore make market movements less extreme while at the same time providing liquidity and bringing trading and execution costs down. These strategies are being supported by exchanges in both Tokyo and Singapore which have recently recognized the relevance and positive benefits. Still, high frequency trading is scrutinized in Asia, where market regulators make it harder to advance these markets and technologies through short selling rules, market connection and access issues, restrictions for foreign investors or currencies. That means you can't take a strategy you are running in the U.S. or Europe and just migrate it into Asia. Asia is a much harder environment to deal with, but that challenge of course comes with a reward, because once these hurdles are overcome, the traders are part of a growing and very interesting market.

The 2012 Opalesque Hong Kong Roundtable offered additional fascinating insights about:

• Business, regulatory and operational environment for hedge funds in Hong Kong
• How regulators inspect high frequency trading firms
• The human override: required or not? What is the regulators' view?
• Clouds everywhere? The regulators' views what can go into the cloud and what not
• Asian regulators confront managers on technology risk and business continuity planning
• Is China educating armies of professional derivatives traders? Eurex' Trading Labs in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taiwan
• How Asian emerging hedge fund managers succeed: Know your cost base and capacity
• Why counter-party risk is “staggering” at the moment, and why many fund managers ignore it
• How hedge funds ended up being the banks' cheapest funding source
• Why investors will lose out if the trend towards using swaps continues in Asia
• The future of volatility trading: what investors are missing

The 2012 Opalesque Hong Kong Roundtable was sponsored by Eurex and SunGard and took place in early May with:

• George Castrounis, Co-Founder Maple Leaf Capital
• Paul Lo, Head of the Eurex Representative Office in Hong Kong
• obias Hallin, Portfolio Manager, Seeker Advisors
• Philippa Allen, Founder, ComplianceAsia
• Arjen Gaasbeek, Head, Hong Kong office, Ingensoma Financial Group
• Mark Wightman, Global Head Alternative Strategies, SunGard

The Opalesque Roundtable Series highlights fundamental developments within the global hedge fund and alternative investment industry, a full archive with over 70 Roundtable scripts can be accessed here:
http://www.opalesque.com/Archive-Roundtable.html.

Matthias Knab, founder of Opalesque and internationally recognized expert on hedge funds and alternatives, moderates the Opalesque Roundtables.