Interviewed by: Kevin McPartland

Viewed as an industry pioneer, Michael oversees a global trading team operating 24 hours per day responsible for the execution of long and short trades in over seventy-five markets. They also gathering intelligence on new instruments including hard currency and local currency debt. Having successfully steered Eaton Vance’s FX trading desk trough choppy waters in 2015, Michael will share his expertise on:

• Assessing the impact of the developing regulatory environment- What makes a compliant trading desk in 2016?

• What strategies can you exploit to ensure you are tapping into the best liquidity pools at the right times?

• In an increasingly electronic market, what are the latest technology trends you should be monitoring to improve your overall trading performance?

• Minimizing risk- How can you protect your desk when major tectonic shifts occur such as the SNB incident last January?

FX is the most liquid asset class in the world, and traditionally sourcing liquidity has not been a major issue for market participants. However, on-going regulatory reform, market structure changes, and fragmented trading platforms has led to increased difficulty in sourcing liquidity, particularly in times of market stress. Attend this opening session where you will learn:

• Liquidity post SNB- Has the SNB debacle had a negative effect on liquidity provision in FX markets?
• Can the FX market be consolidated without eliminating competition and stifling innovation?
• SDP vs MDP- Have trading platforms adequately adapted to market structure and technology changes?
• With banks dis-intermediating from FX, does this increase the likelihood of FX trading becoming more exchange like?

Both regulation and e-trading has changed the buy side perception of the sell side value proposition. As banks become more restricted on the risk they can take in FX markets, more agency like models have come to the fore. This contentious debate will provide both sides of the argument on what model is best suited for your trading operations. Attend this debate and decide for yourself:

• Is it now much more efficient for banks to act as agency and execute trades for clients, or is the principal model still the most reliable form of trading?
• Does increasingly electronic markets mean agency like models are inevitable in FX, or will principal based models remain the dominant form of trading?
• Will there always be the need for a principal broker in FX or are they a dying breed?
• Do the advantages of e-trading such as improved reliability outweigh the disadvantages such as the loss of the human touch in FX trading?

As electronic trading increases its grasp on FX markets, buy side firms are looking to incorporate their TCA and algorithmic trading to determine the best times to use algorithms and reduce costs. This discussion combines those at the forefront of the technological evolution in FX, to provide expert advice on:

• What inefficiencies should you look out for across the trade lifecycle to increase your chances of increasing transparency and achieving best execution?
• How can you use pre-trade TCA to decide when are the best times of the day to trade across different locations around the world?
• Building a robust FX TCA system- What are the current shortcomings and how can they be overcome?
• How can you use TCA to baseline algos against each other to understand what type of algos to use and when?

The market shocks from the FX fixing scandal towards the end of 2016 will be felt across the industry for years to come. At the centre of all this is the WM FIX, the most common benchmark used across the industry. This panel will provide insights on how they have been affected by the fixing allegations, and shed light on alternative benchmarking strategies to achieve transparent and reliable trading. Attend this panel to find out:

• Benchmark fragmentation- How can the industry standardize benchmarks to provide more consistent results and clarity on best execution?
• Widening the FIX- was this a good move or a bad move from the regulators?
• Aftermath of the WMR- How has the industry adapted the structure of their trading desks to adapt to the WM FIX changes?
• New benchmarking strategies- What alternatives are available for the buy side away from the WM FIX?
• Creating a benchmark suite- How can you compare different benchmarks and prove which is the most reliable for your FX trading?