Patent Grant
8306903
This application claims priority from U.S. application Ser. No. 10/345,466, filed Jan. 14, 2003, issuing as U.S. Pat. No. 7,707,097 on Apr. 27, 2010, which is incorporated by reference.
This invention relates to the calculating and displaying of commissions relating to the trading of financial instruments. Specifically, this invention relates to the calculating and displaying of commissions charged for trading variable or fixed interest-rate-related instruments—e.g., United States Treasury Bonds, Notes, or Bills, United Kingdom Gilts, European government bonds, and emerging market debts, swaps, repos, etc.
In non-electronic trading of interest-rate-related instruments, two classes of individuals are typically involved in the trading: traders and brokers. Typically, traders purchase or sell the securities or instruments. Brokers match traders acting as buyers to traders acting as sellers in order to facilitate the purchase or sale of the interest-rate-related instrument. The purchase, sale, or other transaction involving the interest-rate-related instruments is known, and referred to herein as a trade.
Historically, one of the problems associated with this system was the lack of direct communication between the two traders transacting the trade of the interest-rate-related instrument. This lack of direct communication allows the broker to fictionalize one side of the trade to the counterparty on the other side of the trade. This fictionalization allows the broker to decrease the actual spread between a buy and a sell position while maintaining the positions of the parties as perceived by the parties themselves.
For example, assume that a seller had taken a position that he would not sell a particular interest-rate-related instrument for less than $50 per instrument, while the buyer had taken a position that he would not pay for more than $48 per instrument. At this point in the negotiation, the seller may indicate to the broker that he would accept $49 per instrument while the buyer may indicate to the broker that he would pay $49 per instrument. Nevertheless, the broker may not communicate the respective communications to the respective counterparties. Rather, the broker may inform each counterparty that the other is steadfast in his respective position. Alternatively, the broker may indicate a slight movement, either to an offer to buy of $48.50 from the prospective buyer or to an offer to sell of $49.50 from the seller, or both. Whether the broker has only communicated the first, unchanged, offer or a slightly changed offer, the respective traders may transact the trade of the interest-rate-related instrument at a price other than the price they agreed to. In this particular example, the buyer may believe that he must pay $50 (or $49.50) while the seller may believe he will receive only $48.00 (or $48.50). The $2.00 (or $1.00) between the amount actually received and the actually amount actually paid in each trade becomes excess profits, for the broker over and above the known brokerage fee. Further compounding the problem may be that excess broker profits and the concomitant distortion of the true market price based on the excess profits, are concealed from the buyer and seller.
A similar problem may exist in electronic trading of interest-rate-related instruments as well. In electronic trading, the trading logic used by the trading system or platform (which operates similarly to a voice broker in non-electronic trading) may not be fully disclosed by the system or platform. This lack of full disclosure by the electronic trading system prevents the customers (similar to traders in non-electronic trading) from being fully aware, until perhaps a much later time, of the brokerage charges being charged to them by the electronic trading system.
It would be desirable to provide an electronic trading system and method for the trading of interest-rate-related instruments that fully and clearly discloses the brokerage fees charged to the customers.
It would also be desirable to provide an electronic trading system and method for the trading of interest-rate-related instruments that fully and clearly discloses the brokerage fees charged to the customers in real time. “Real time” should be understood to suggest immediacy, subject only to normal electronic processing delay and interruptions. Whether or not a user experiences a significant delay before receiving information or a response in real time (in this context) may depend upon the capabilities of the user's system, the server system and any intervening network, or the efficiency of an external data source.
It would also be desirable to provide an electronic trading system and method for the trading of interest-rate-related instruments that informs the customers of the factors which form the basis for the calculation of the brokerage fees.
It would also be desirable to provide an electronic trading system and method for the trading of interest-rate-related instruments that provides an opportunity to customers to influence the factors for the calculation of the brokerage fees charged to the customer.
In general, in a first aspect, the invention features an apparatus that displays commissions for a trade of an interest-rate-related instrument. A server has a server storage device; a server processor connected to the server storage device, the server storage device storing a server program for controlling the server processor. The server processor is operative with the server program to execute a trade of the interest-rate-related instrument between a first party and a counterparty. A plurality of workstations are each operative to communicate with the server. Each workstation has a workstation storage device; a workstation processor connected to the workstation storage device, the workstation storage device storing a workstation program for controlling the workstation processor. The workstation processor is operative with the workstation program to receive information relating to the interest-rate-related instrument, display a commission on the trade to the first party or the counterparty before, during, or after the execution of the trade, and to allow the first party or the counterparty to modify the trade information in order to influence the commission.
In general, in a second aspect, the invention features a system that calculates and displays a commission for a trade of an interest-rate-related instrument between a first party and a counterparty. A server executes the trade and calculates the commission for the trade before, during, or after the execution of the trade. A plurality of workstations electronically display the commission and information relating to the trade of the interest-rate-related instrument to the first party or the counterparty, the server operative with at least one of the plurality of workstations to allow the first party or the counterparty to modify the information relating to the trade of the interest-rate-related instrument in order to influence the commission.
In general, in a third aspect, the invention features a method for displaying commission information for a proposed trade of an interest-rate-related instrument to a customer trading in such an instrument. An interactive view region is displayed to the trader, the interactive view region which displays commission information. A bid or offer position on the interest-rate-related instrument is received from the customer. The bid or offer position is displayed to the customer in an interactive view region. The customer is allowed to modify the bid or offer position in order to influence a commission on the proposed trade. The bid or offer position and the commission are displayed to the customer in an interactive view region. The trade is executed. The commission on the trade is displayed in the interactive view region to the customer.
Embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following features. The system may include a clearing center coupled to the server, that causes the trade to be completed and cleared and that verifies that the trade is completed and cleared. The clearing center may be operative to communicate with the server. The clearing center may include a clearing storage device; a clearing processor connected to the clearing storage device, the clearing storage device that stores a clearing program for controlling the clearing processor. The clearing processor may be operative with the clearing program to cause the trades to be completed and cleared and to verify that the trades are completed and cleared. The server processor may include a commission calculation processor for calculating the commission for the trade. The server may include a commission calculation processor for calculating the commission for the trade; and a trade processor coupled to the commission calculation processor for executing and processing the trade. The server processor may be operative with the server program to calculate the commission for the trade before the execution of the trade. The server processor may be operative with the server program to calculate the commission for the trade substantially simultaneously as the execution of the trade. The server processor may include a trade processor for executing and processing the trade. The system may allowing the customer to modify the type of his commission agreement in order to influence the commission. The commission on the proposed trade may be calculated based on the bid or offer position. Each workstation may be adapted to display a bid or an offer on the interest-rate-related instrument to the first party or the counterparty in an interactive view region. The server may be adapted to arrange the information relating to the interest-rate-related instrument based on a predetermined protocol. The bid or offer position may be arranged to be displayed with respect to other bid and offer positions entered by other customers based on a predetermined protocol. The information relating to the interest-rate-related instrument may include the type of commission agreement pertaining to the first party and the counterparty. Calculating the commission may be based on the type of customer commission agreement. The information relating to the interest-rate-related instrument may include the type of interest-rate-related instrument. The information relating to the interest-rate-related instrument may include the bid or offer size. The calculating the commission is further based on the proposed bid or offer size. The information relating to the interest-rate-related instrument may include the dollar amount of the bid or offer on the interest-rate-related instrument. The commission may be calculated based on the dollar amount of the bid or offer.
An electronic trading system and method may provide trading of interest-rate-related instruments that fully and clearly discloses the brokerage fees or commissions charged to the customers.
An electronic trading system and method may provide for the trading of interest-rate-related instruments that fully and clearly discloses the brokerage fees or commissions charged to the customers in real time.
An electronic trading system and method may provide for the trading of interest-rate-related instruments that informs the customers of the factors which form the basis for the calculation of the brokerage fees or commissions.
An electronic trading system and method may provide for the trading of interest-rate-related instruments that provides an opportunity to customers to influence the factors for the calculation of the brokerage fees or commissions charged to the customer.
To better appreciate the following details, the nomenclature is defined below. The illustrative examples herein, but not limited to them, all focus on fixed-income and fixed-income-related instruments, as well as the trading of these instruments—with the volume of a given trade delineated in, but not limited to, dollars—e.g., $25 million of 10-year Treasury Notes.
The following terms are used with the associated definitions:
A computer-based data processing system for displaying and adjusting trade information as well as commission information relating to a trade may further calculate a commission based on the trade and display it, along with the trade and commission information to a user of such a system. The data processing system employs a plurality of trading workstations linked with a server for coordinated data flow and processing. The system may display the commissions on electronically executed trades of, preferably primarily although not necessarily, interest-rate-related instruments, and may include: a processor adapted to calculate a commission of a selected trade of such an instrument, workstations adapted to display the commission of the selected trade prior to, during, or after the execution of the trade. The workstations may also be adapted to display and allow the user to modify the factors relating to calculation of the commission.
The above and other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:
Referring to
In system 100, server 104 may be any suitable server, processor, computer, data processing device, or combination of the same. Server 104 may be used to process and settle the executed trades, calculate commissions for potential trades as well as for actual trades, and provide information that may be used to display calculated commissions.
Computer network 103 may be any suitable computer network including the Internet, an intranet, a wide-area network (WAN), a local-area network (LAN), a wireless network, a digital subscriber line (DSL) network, a frame relay network, an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network, a virtual private network (VPN), or any combination of any of the same. Communications links 102 and 105 may be any communications links suitable for communicating data between workstations 101 and server 104, such as network links, dial-up links, wireless links, hard-wired links, etc.
Workstations 101 may be personal computers, laptop computers, mainframe computers, dumb terminals, data displays, Internet browsers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), two-way pagers, wireless terminals, portable telephones, etc., or any combination of the same. Workstations 101 may be used to enter into and proceed with trades, and display trade and/or commission information to users of system 100.
Back office clearing center 112 may be any suitable equipment, such as a computer, a laptop computer, a mainframe computer, etc., or any combination of the same, for causing trades to be cleared and/or verifying that trades are cleared. Communications link 110 may be any communications links suitable for communicating data between server 104 and back office clearing center 112, such as network links, dial-up links, wireless links, hard-wired links, etc.
The server, the back office clearing center, and one of the workstations, which are depicted in
Server 104 may include processor 211, display 212, input device 213, and memory 214, which may be interconnected. Memory 214 may contain a storage device for storing trade information as well as commission information. The storage device further contains a server program for controlling processor 211. Processor 211 uses the server program to transact the purchase and sale of the interest-rate-related instruments. Processor 211 may include commission calculation processor 215 that determines the commissions based on market conditions or other criteria that may relate to the commissions. Processor 211 may include trade processor 216 that executes and processes trades.
Back office clearing center 112 may include processor 221, display 222, input device 223, and memory 224, which may be interconnected. Memory 224 may contain a storage device for storing a clearing program for controlling processor 221. Processor 221 uses the clearing program to clear executed trades, thereby facilitating the transfer of securities resulting from the executed trades. Clearing executed trades may include exchanging currency for an instrument.
Referring to
The system may therefore receive the bid/offer positions entered by the user. Next, the commission for the potential trade may be calculated at step 304, based on the received information. Commission calculation, which will be described in more detail in relation to
It should be noted that, in selected embodiments, payment of commission may be received only from the aggressing party—i.e., the party that either hits the bid or lifts the offer. In other embodiments, the commission may be received from each party involved in the transaction.
The positions that are still pending, along with the commissions associated with each trade based on such positions, may be arranged and displayed in priority according to a predetermined protocol. A user may establish priority by placing a bid or offer at a select price and size. Priority may be based upon time of submission, price, size, or any other suitable criterion. By way of example, the highest bid may be displayed on the screen above other bids, and bids at the same price may be displayed in the time order in which they enter the system.
Once the bid and offer positions are displayed on the workstations, they may be accepted by another user, or counterparty. Process 300 then determines whether any user has accepted a pending bid or offer at step 308. Once a user has accepted a pending bid or a pending offer, the trade may be executed at step 310 and the commission pertaining to the executed trade may be displayed again to the user for confirmation. Trade processor 216, shown in
Referring to
Next, process 400 may determine whether any user has accepted a pending bid/offer at step 406. If no customer accepts a pending bid or offer at step 406, no trade will be executed and the display on the screen may remain the same unless a user places or changes a bid or offer at step 402. Once a user accepts a pending bid/offer, the trade may be executed at step 408 by trade processor 216, shown in
Commission calculation according to steps 304 or 404 of
Users may be classified according to their type of commission agreement at step 502. For example, some users may have an agreement for a flat periodic rate (monthly, yearly, etc.) for their commissions. These users would be charged the same monthly or yearly rate regardless of the number of transactions they make. Such users may be classified as ones having a “Master Agreement.” Other users may have to pay a commission for each transaction they participate or, alternatively, in each transaction in which they aggress. Such users may be classified as ones having a “Transaction” type agreement.
In addition, the instrument or instruments on which bids/offers are placed by a particular user are identified, at step 502, according to whether they pertain to a particular class of financial instruments such as interest-rate-related securities, currencies, equities, and their derivatives, or whether they represent bonds, currency, stocks, options, etc. They may even be classified in more detail according to, for example, their year-to-maturity. Also, for each one of these instruments, the bid/offer size and dollar amount placed by a user may be recorded. Such trade information (or position-specific information), as well as other suitable commission information may be used to calculate the commission on the potential trade that may take place if the user were to hit/lift one or more pending bids/offers or, alternatively, have his bid hit or his offer lifted.
At step 504, the trade and commission information gathered in step 502 is used to determine the dollar amount of the commission that may be charged to the user. In some cases this dollar amount may be zero. For example, if the information recorded for a particular user reveals that the user has a master agreement for a fixed annual sum of money, then the marginal cost of a transaction will be zero unless a designated increment stated in the user's contract is specified.
Although some users may not complete or fully engage in a transaction, they may still participate in some aspects of a trade. For instance, those users may post bids or offers, or browse through posted bids and offers in search of potential hits or lifts. In doing so, such users may provide the market with additional liquidity. Step 502 of
Referring to
After the trade is executed, the commission on the trade may be calculated based on the instruments that were involved in the completed transaction at step 610, and displayed to the user at step 612. The commission calculation may be implemented by commission calculation processor 215 or
It may however be more desirable to provide a method for electronically trading that fully and clearly discloses the commission charged to the users prior to the execution of the trade as shown in
Process 700 of
As a security arrangement, each particular agreement may be associated with a code that may match the user's location and/or other identifying features. Furthermore, a particular commission agreement identifier may ensure that the user does not change his particular information to an agreement that is more beneficial to him. Thus, a double key may be set up between the trading system and the user whereby each party enters a particular code such that the commission agreement may not be changed by either party unilaterally.
Next, the commission for the potential trade may be calculated at step 704, based on the information entered by the user and identified by the system. Commission calculation may be implemented by commission calculation processor 215, shown in
After the positions and commissions are displayed to the user at step 706, process 700 may determine whether any user hit/lifted a pending bid/offer at step 708. After learning the potential commission that he may be charged, the user may choose to modify some of the information entered in order to influence the calculated commission. At step 708, the user may be prompted as to whether the displayed trade information and/or commission information is accurate or acceptable. By not accepting or by choosing not to hit or lift any pending position, the user may be taken back to step 702 where he may enter or update his positions and/or commission information. For example, by changing his type of commission agreement and/or size of bids/offers, the user may reduce the total dollar amount of commissions charged to him or, alternatively, reduce the amount of commissions on a per contract basis. The user may also choose to place bids/offers on less liquid instruments. Participation in markets of less liquid instruments may also benefit the user by rewarding him for such participation, as described above. A workstation, such as element 202 of
Once a user has accepted a pending bid or a pending offer, the trade may be executed at step 710 and the commission pertaining to the executed trade may be displayed again to the user. Trade processor 216, shown in
Information relating to the positions placed by a user as well as the user's commission information may be provided to the user. Interactive region 800 illustrated in
In addition, window 888 may display information that is specific to the user or that relates to the commissions he may be charged. Such information may include the user or customer identification number, the user's commission agreement type, whether or not the user is an aggressor in a particular transaction, the liquidity of the particular instrument selected by the user, the total volume of trades the user participated in or entered into, the current date and time, or other suitable information.
In order to select a particular issue, the user may move box 801 to the desired area within a subregion through his keyboard, mouse, or any type of input device such as element 203 of workstation 101 depicted in
As will be discussed in detail in the following, the user may transact any one of the instruments shown in
In order to bid for, offer, buy or sell an instrument shown within a subregion, the user may submit a trading command indicating the action to be taken using different methods. For example, the user may submit the trading command using a command-line interface, by moving box 801 of
In another embodiment, selecting a particular instrument displayed in interactive view region 800 may open a dialog box that is displayed to the user on the same screen. Such a dialog box is illustrated in
A particular set of buttons in dialog box 900 constitute a numeric keypad 902 that may provide buttons for numbers zero through nine, and may contain buttons for numbers ten, twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred or any other suitable or desirable values. Numeric keypad 902 may also contain a plus button (“+”), a minus button (“−”), a decimal point button (“.”), a backspace button (“BKS”), and a delete button (“DEL”).
In addition, dialog box 900 may also provide the user with a buy button 904, a sell button 906, a cancel buys button 908, a cancel sells button 910, a bid button 912, an offer button 914, a cancel bids button 916, a cancel offers button 918, cancel all buttons 920, cancel all for all instruments buttons 922, a price entry field 924, price up and down buttons 927, bid price up and down buttons 923, offer price up and down buttons 925, a size entry field 926, and size up and down buttons 929.
Referring to
For example, assuming that the user wants to decrease the offer price to $100.20 with regards to the 5-year treasury note, he may press offer button 914 once and thereby cause offer price $100.22 (as illustrated in
Although the previous is an example of how a user may submit an offer to sell a particular instrument, the same features may be available in bidding for any instrument. Similarly, to buy or sell a desired number of issues of a particular instrument, buy and sell buttons 904 and 906 may be used, respectively, and in conjunction with size buttons 929.
Entry field 930 and buttons 933 of dialog box 900 may be used to change the user commission agreement. For example, if the user wishes to modify his commission agreement with respect to a particular instrument, he may bring up dialog box 900 by clicking anywhere within the subregion of
However, as mentioned before, a double key may be set up between the trading system and the user whereby each party entering into a transaction may enter a particular code such that the commission agreement may not be changed by either party unilaterally. Also, the user's customer ID may be used to ensure that the user does not change his particular commission information at will.
Dialogue box 900 of
Interactive view region 800 and dialog box 900 of
For the convenience of the reader, the above description has focused on a representative sample of all possible embodiments, a sample that teaches the principles of the invention and conveys the best mode contemplated for carrying it out. Throughout this application and its associated file history, when the term “invention” is used, it refers to the entire collection of ideas and principles described; in contrast, the formal definition of the exclusive protected property right is set forth in the claims, which exclusively control. The description has not attempted to exhaustively enumerate all possible variations. Other undescribed variations or modifications may be possible. Where multiple alternative embodiments are described, in many cases it will be possible to combine elements of different embodiments, or to combine elements of the embodiments described here with other modifications or variations that are not expressly described. In many cases, one feature or group of features may be used separately from the entire apparatus or methods described. Many of those undescribed variations, modifications and variations are within the literal scope of the following claims, and others are equivalent.
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