Orc, a global leader in derivatives trading technology, has announced Orc Smart Order Router (SOR), a flexible, high-performance routing engine designed to enhance quality of execution, reach the best liquidity and reduce costs. It also enables brokers and firms to consolidate their market access infrastructure to one global vendor.

Orc Smart Order Router connects any FIX-enabled Execution Management System (EMS) or Order Management System (OMS) to all available liquidity for multi-listed securities. To support a wide range of user needs and different types of trading, Orc Smart Order Router is highly configurable through user-accessible parameters and settings, and extendable by adding user-defined logic.

Orc Smart Order Router combines essential, high-performance order routing functionality with advanced features and options, including fully integrated dark pool support for strategies, FPGA market data feeds, and powerful tools for execution quality statistics and analysis.

For brokers and trading firms, Orc Smart Order Router offers a rich set of routing rules covering a wide variety of trading scenarios using automated order routing across any of Orc’s 150+ robust, low-latency native market gateways. Rules are set up once and will then adapt to market changes.

“Flexibility is key to making Orc Smart Order Router a highly effective and profitable tool for reaching the best liquidity in a wide range of multi-venue trading scenarios,” said Martin Nilsson, Head of Product Management, Orc Group. “It allows firms to cater to clients’ needs, while optimizing their proprietary flow and minimizing market impact. Orc Smart Order Router is also easy to set up and to operate on a daily basis, thus offering superior time to market.”

By optimizing routing rules to specific criteria, Orc Smart Order Router is equally effective for reducing execution costs as for improving quality of execution to achieve Best Execution. Execution is easily adapted to various markets, accounting for different cost structures or client preferences.

Orc Smart Order Router continuously monitors markets and orders to take action when needed. For example it monitors market states, crossing quotes and will rebalance unfilled orders on trades. It also offers anti-gaming features, including information leakage prevention and synchronized market access.