Content area
Full Text
A latecomer to the primary dealer market, Dresdner Securities (USA) bucked the proprietary system trend by selecting a turnkey platform for U.S. government securities analytical trading.
A year ago, Dresdner Securities (USA) opened a new fixed income trading floor at 75 Wall Street. Armed with a $200 million capital infusion from its parent, the mandate was to become a major player in global fixed income trading.
The firm hired Donald Galante, naming him senior vice president and head of fixed income in North America and the U.S. treasury product globally.
More than a head trader, Galante, who had helped other foreign banks, including UBS and Barclays, build a U.S. government securities business from scratch, oversees the trading desks, fixed income and the treasury product globally. "As a manager my job is to deliver the tools needed to generate revenue," says Galante.
Wasting no time, Galante called up a man whose products he respectedEd Bishop, president and CEO of Kestral, who developed fixed income trading software and research as former head bond arbitrage trader at Drexel Burnham Lambert.
Dresdner picked the Kestral Trading System-since renamed RAPTr-an acronym for risk, analytics position trading system.
On the 160-position floor, 10 tradersup from five a few months ago are currently using the Kestral system for trading U.S. bills, notes, bonds, agencies, swaps, futures, and exchange traded options. After researching the market, Galante discovered that "there aren't many systems out there that encompass our product line and do it in a way that ties [together] all aspects, both front and back office efficiently."
But Dresdner's choice of a turnkey system breaks with the historical trend of building front-end analytical systems from scratch and could represent a new twist on the theme of `build versus buy.'
Up until now, most investment...