US-based broker Knight Capital Group has launched Knight Global, a new program trading service for institutional investors in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
Knight Global offers equity program trading, index rebalancing and transition management, with 24/7 support by the company's sales and trading desks using Knight's algorithms, smart order routing and pre- and post-trade reporting and analysis.
Developed along the similar lines to its single stock offering, Knight has connected its program trading offering in the US to its businesses in Europe and Asia using a single technology platform to service clients globally. All the firm's existing algorithmic offerings are accessible through the platform.
Knight has built up its program trading offering over the last 12 months with tools developed specifically for deployment by the Knight Global team on behalf of institutional clients, including algorithms, basket-trading capabilities, complex strategies and pre- and post-transaction cost analysis tailored for program trading.
“The team that built program trading for us in the US has used the same building blocks in Europe and replicated that success – with a few tweaks to match the system to the new microstructure,” said Jenkins Marshall, managing director at Knight Capital.
"We have hired and continue to add key program trading personnel across the US, Europe and Asia, and we've extended Knight's connectivity to even more markets," said Gregory Voetsch, executive vice president and head of global equities, Knight. "Our expanded international capabilities, the experience of our team and our methodology for trading client orders together create further opportunities to reduce transaction costs on behalf of our institutional clients."
The platform is supplemented by two sales and trading staff in each of Knight's Hong Kong and London offices, as well as an additional five in New Jersey. Knight Global is headed by Marshall and John Shaw, managing director at Knight Capital, who jointly oversee a program trading desk that includes 20 sales and trading professionals across the US, Europe and Asia.
“When we speak to US pension funds, they are not purely following S&P 500 index stocks, they are using MSCI indices for the whole world as their benchmarks,” said Shaw. “They're investing in Europe, Asia, emerging and frontier markets.” He said that Knight's knowledge of market microstructure and expertise in small- and mid-cap securities would differentiate the offering.
Knight Capital is connected to more than 100 public and private markets worldwide, covering 100% of the MSCI developed and emerging markets and a growing number of MSCI frontier markets.
