Financial Markets

High Frequency Trading (HFT)

There is a fierce “race to zero” in financial markets and that “zero” does not refer to money but rather latency. The majority of stock trades today are driven by high frequency trading (HFT) platforms and ultra-low latency is the medium of choice that technology vendors must exploit to keep ahead of the competition. HFT platforms rely on various latency reducing techniques such as co-location, shortest path networks and specialized acceleration hardware.

In its simplest form, an HFT platform takes in a large volume of market data from various stock exchanges, executes algorithmic trading strategies to uncover trading opportunities and finally executes the buy or sell orders. All of this activity must be completed in the shortest time possible and often shaving off a few microseconds can make the difference between a profit and loss.

trading-racesKey Challenges

The challenges to implementing a high frequency trading (HFT) platform are many, but they all boil down to performing a myriad of activities in the least amount of time. In other words, reducing the latency to as close to “zero” as possible. Some examples of activities which can be streamlined are:

  • Market Data Acquisition. Think reducing the time it takes to execute those FIX, ITCH and OUCH transactions.
  • Algorithmic Processing. Those sophisticated computer models must execute at warp speed and unnecessary processing latency is the foe.
  • Risk Management. No platform can afford to accidentally make “rogue” trades, so proper risk management controls are a must to avoid the scrutiny of government regulatory bodies. But those controls must execute in a very tight time window.
  • Trade Execution Metrics. Precise metrics on the time it takes to execute trades is paramount for both customer satisfaction and regulatory compliance.

Why Accolade Technology?

Accolade Technology is a leading provider of the most advanced FPGA based Application Acceleration PCIe Adapters/NICs. For over a decade Accolade has provided network adapter acceleration solutions to OEMs in the financial trading market.

We offer global OEM customers, distributors, and systems integrators:

  • A cost competitive solution to help accelerate the performance of your financial trading platform.
  • Unparalleled software expertise to help minimize the effort required to implement your software logic on our FPGA based adapters.
  • Leading edge products that are first to market and always a head of the technology curve such as our dual port 100GigE solution.
  • A 60-day, cost free product evaluation to allow you to test and evaluate Accolade’s comprehensive feature sets and seamless API integration.

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