Welcome to New Option Symbology!

Posted on23. Mar, 2010 by khader.

Many of us have been working on implementing new Option Symbology for listed options. May be in few months we might forget old format (OPRA). The new format is very friendly and we don’t have to remember those old rules. In a nutshell, here’s how the new option symbol formed:
Root symbol + Expiration Year (YY) + [...]

Continue Reading

Bloomberg Open Symbology – BSYM (Bloomberg open sources its Security Identifier Universe)

Posted on25. Feb, 2010 by khader.

A while ago, Bloomberg announced that it is making its proprietary security codes public (http://bsym.bloomberg.com/sym/). I received couple of emails asking what that means. Many news items used the term ‘Open Source’, which was confusing to some. First, let me explain what they are making it open source.
As some of my articles on this blog [...]

Continue Reading

Fixed Income Trading System Architecture Workshop on Sep 26

Posted on13. Aug, 2009 by khader.

I am planning to start another series of sessions on Trading Platform Architecture. I will start the first session on Sep 26th covering the basics of FI products, players, needs of Broker/dealer and System requirements. For more details and presentation downloads visit Fixed Income Trading System Architecture
I will also be postin some articles on desing [...]

Continue Reading

Securities Trade Life Cycle

Posted on11. Apr, 2009 by khader.

It is important to know the big picture of securities trade life cycle. I have been conducting this little workshop on this topic. This workshop covers the following topics. You can also download the presentation Securities Trade Processing(PPT/PDF).
 
CONTENTS:

Introduction
Brokerage Firm/Securities Trading Organization
Trade Life Cycle
Order Origination / Front Office
Order Validation / Middle Office
Settlement / Back Office
Custodians, Commercial Banks
References

-Khader

Continue Reading

Ticker Symbol of Stocks, Options and Futures – The story behind them.

Posted on05. Mar, 2009 by khader.

The Ticker Symbol is a common identifier used in financial marktes to identify all trading instruments. The ticker symbols are fromed using certain methods. Knowing those methods would make our job much easier especially if you are dealing with multiple classes instruments. The idea behind this article is to bring all of them together and discuss.
Supporting presentation from [...]

Continue Reading

Securities Identification Codes: SYMBOL, CUSIP, ISIN, SEDOL, RIC Code

Posted on22. Feb, 2009 by khader.

I have been thinking of gettting some details of all the security codes together from a while. In this article I have explained some fundamental details of each identifier. These are heavily used in daily life of the technical and nontechnical staff of the financial firms.
List different security Identifier used in financial marktes are:

SYMBOL
CUSIP
ISIN
SEDOL
RIC Code

You can also download the [...]

Continue Reading

My FIX Protocol Videos on YouTube, finally!

Posted on16. Feb, 2009 by khader.

Finally, I could post my FIX Protocol introduction videos on YouTube. The video is in 4 parts each around 7-10 min long. I tried my best to cover the complete introduction. You can download the presentation here (PPT/PDF). I hope any one who is new to the subject can easily get the whole big picture. Please [...]

Continue Reading

Market Data – Ticks – Uptick – Downtick

Posted on08. Feb, 2009 by khader.

I just wanted to clarify few basic terms that are used very often to indicate market movements.

Plustick/Uptick
Security is Trading at higher than the previous sale price
Minustick/Downtick
Security is trading at lower than the previous sale price
Zero plustick
Security is trading at same as last sale price but previous tick was a plustick

Continue Reading

Financial Markets & Products – Introduction

Posted on06. Feb, 2009 by khader.

One day workshop
Covers fundamental elements of Financial markets and products. Topics like:

Overview of Financial markets
Players and Structure of Financial markets

Buy Side Firms
Sell Side Firms
Exchanges
Regulatory Bodies (SEC)
Clearing Firms, Commercial banks

Categories of financial products

Equities
Fixed Income
Options & Futures
Other Derivatives

Regulatory agencies and their role

Securities Exchange Commission
Self regulatory Agencies (NYSE etc)

Download class presentation (ppt/pdf) : insidefinmkts_ksv_full

Continue Reading

FIX Protocol Training

Posted on01. Feb, 2009 by khader.

As I promised, another one day FIX workshop will be conducted on Feb 15 ‘09. This is going to be one day course from 10AM to 4PM. (You can also watch my FIX Protocol video on YouTube)
I will be covering the following topics:
Part – 1 (Download Material -PDF)
FIX Protocol Introduction

Overview
History
Usage / Players
Message Types
Message Format
Communication Model
Anatomy [...]

Continue Reading