Portware, a FactSet Company and a leading global provider of multi-asset trade automation solutions powered by artificial intelligence (AI), today announced continuous momentum for its Alpha Pro AI-enabled algorithmic trading management solution with over $168 billion notional traded on its platform. In an environment where active managers face increased pressure from passive trading strategies, Alpha Pro has proven to power the intelligent workflows required to enable traders to respond with improved performance while simultaneously lowering the total cost of trade, and of the tools to trade.

Alpha Pro uses predictive analytics to evaluate historical and real-time order flow, helping traders implement the execution schedules that best capture price opportunities and short-term alpha while minimizing market impact. With Alpha Pro, every order that arrives on a trader’s blotter can be analyzed, vetted, and paired with a recommended trading strategy, trade horizon, and recommended algo type selection. Its broker-neutral, data-driven analytics and insights give clients the freedom to use it for analysis alone, or analysis plus execution; when used for both analysis and execution, Alpha Pro optimizes trading schedules to deliver savings relative to proprietary and standard cost benchmarks, allowing traders to manage regulatory and administrative obligations while simultaneously preserving alpha.

Trades totaling more than $168 billion in notional value were analyzed and routed through Alpha Pro between March 2009 and March 2017, resulting in the following performance gains versus industry-standard and proprietary benchmarks:

• Alpha Pro delivered savings across all sectors, especially in small and micro cap stocks where it outperformed by a staggering 63 and 133 basis points (bps) respectively.
• Alpha Pro outperformed on large sized trades where order size was greater than 4% of average daily volume, and was highly effective for trades across liquidity profiles, especially less liquid names.
• Alpha Pro helped traders implement the execution schedules that best capture price opportunities and short-term alpha across 12 sectors, with greater savings for diversified, fund, energy and industrial sectors.
• Overall for orders executed with Alpha Pro, strategies outperformed proprietary and standard cost benchmarks by up to 18 bps. This is particularly important for traders today, who are inundated with large data volumes and must quickly analyze market conditions and execute best trading strategies while ensuring compliance.

“The bionic trading desk is here, and traders need the right support to capitalize on this new reality. In a market that moves in milliseconds, automating manual order steps lets a human trader do what they would if they had unlimited hours to focus on each individual order,” said Alfred Eskandar, CEO of Portware. “Portware’s AI technology supports, rather than replaces, traders, saving them countless hours that do not contribute to performance, and empowering them to focus their energy in areas that do. Our ability to customize and rationalize existing resources lets our clients’ extend the life of their existing technologies to help bring down the total cost of ownership of their trading infrastructure with every trade, for every customer.”

Portware helps traders automate multiple manual steps, integrating predictive analytics and AI-driven intelligent workflows built on top of data warehouses with advanced reporting capabilities. Portware tools use hundreds of points of information—including real-time market data feeds, proprietary data, web crawling, social media listening, and more—freeing traders to focus on critical analysis and more difficult orders.