Marex Spectron Creates Pioneering Trading Platform For The LME

October 27, 2014

Marex Spectron, the leading global commodities broker, has created an electronic trading platform for clients who need to execute latency-sensitive strategies on the London Metals Exchange (LME).

The platform works for clients using co-located data centres and contains fundamental risk checks that add just a few microseconds to trading execution times.

Simon van den Born, Global Head of Metals at Marex Spectron, said: “It has been difficult for LME members to maintain appropriate compliance and risk controls for clients who wish to deploy latency sensitive strategies on the exchange. These are the sort of issues you would expect to encounter when a market goes through the extraordinary changes the LME has in recent years but solutions have been slow to emerge.

“Our new platform solves many of those problems, enabling clients to deploy innovative strategies rapidly whilst assisting compliance functions with relevant regulations.

“We are in a unique position to help clients manage the opportunities created by the growth and evolution of the LME. We are responsible for 25% of all Ring transactions and 35% of electronic ‘Select’ volumes. I would suggest that no one knows this market better than we do. When that expertise is combined with years of investment and innovation in trading technology, we build solutions no one can match as evidenced by our proprietary LME algorithmic trading suite and complex FIX offering.”

Marex Spectron’s trading platform is live now for access to the LME but will be made available for clients using other exchanges, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and The Intercontinental Exchange, in the near future.

Nick Benson, Chief Technology Officer at Marex Spectron, said: “Technology development is critical to our commodities businesses. We have therefore chosen to build our own trading solutions to ensure optimal performance for the markets our clients participate in.

“This platform is the result of that collaboration between technology and our active market participants. It solves a very real problem that our brokers and clients encounter every day and demonstrates how we intend to deploy our significant investment in technology in the future.”

For further information please contact Richard Lindsay at Marex Spectron on +44 (0)20 7650 4091 or rlindsay@marexspectron.com

ABOUT MAREX SPECTRON
Marex Spectron is one of the world’s largest privately held brokers of financial instruments in the commodities sector and a leader in facilitating trade in physical energy products.

We are the conduit for clients transacting in raw materials and related derivatives. We do so efficiently, discretely and with confidence, on or off-exchange.

We provide liquidity in commodity markets that are frequently difficult for clients to access or that require specialist knowledge to navigate successfully.

We connect our clients to any of the world’s major commodity exchanges via state of the art networks. We provide a full suite of services to trading companies who need to outsource infrastructure and support operations.

We also broker financial futures and options, and fixed income and equity securities.

Our aim is to provide our clients with a global, integrated service that enables them to trade how they want to trade: by voice, on electronic platforms or through trading floors where possible.

Our clients are predominantly commodity producers and consumers, banks, hedge funds, asset managers, brokers, commodity trading advisors and professional traders.

We are members of the London Metal Exchange (where we are a Ring Dealer), the CME Group exchanges, ICE US, NYSE Liffe, ICE Futures and Eurex.

We are 600 market professionals, headquartered in London with offices across Europe, North America and Asia.