Buy-side clients increasingly want real-time analytics and customizable FX execution tools, says Reza Gholizadech, vice president of automated trading strategies at JP Morgan, as volatile markets challenge traditional trading strategies.

Speaking at TradeTech FX in Miami, she says best execution now depends on greater visibility into how algorithms behave in different market conditions. JP Morgan’s Adaptive FX algorithm, launched in 2021, now accounts for 50% to 60% of the bank’s market-tracking algorithm flow, up from 20% at launch. In Q1 2026, JP Morgan introduced execution speeds tailored to each client’s six-month trading history to improve performance and reduce risk.

Interview

Terry Flanagan – Yesterday at the conference, you spoke on a panel about best execution. What were the key takeaways from that panel?

Reza Gholizadeh – Yeah, so on the panel, we discussed how in current market environments, achieving best execution goes beyond just using algo and automation. It is now about customization. It’s about transparency, it’s about more real-time analytics tools. A lot of clients are now asking for solutions that could dynamically adjust the execution in real time to their trading needs. And clients are aware of the fact that their trading behaviour could be very well different from a lot of clients. Some of the clients are asking for a more sophisticated pre-trade model, specifically analyzing their flow compared to what we are able to achieve with other clients. Overall, clients of both sides of the spectrum, both on the high-touch and low-touch, want more sophisticated tools. At the same time, more transparency as to how algo works, and algo is able to interact with markets in different market regimes.

Terry Flanagan – What are you hearing from JP Morgan’s buy-side clients here at Trade Tech FX in terms of what are their pain points around FX trading currently?

Reza Gholizadeh – Yeah. So as you can imagine, we have clients on both sides of spectrum. We have clients that want to have a fully high-touch and more control of their execution in real time. And also we have clients that are full systematic. They generally take a hands-off approach. Everything is model-driven. For clients that are very much high-touch. They want more real-time analytics. They want more transparency in real-time. They want to better understand the logic behind the algo, the way algo interacts with the market. Clients on the opposite side of the spectrum, they want more sophisticated tools, both pre-trade and post trade, in order to shape their execution based on our model, looking at different liquidity profiles throughout the day, different market dynamics, and use our data-driven approach the way we build the model to achieve best performance, minimize market impact and minimize time and risk at the same time.

Terry Flanagan – Adaptive was launched as JP Morgan’s flagship dynamic algorithm in 2021. What was the objective of this launch, and how has the algo evolved over the past five years?

Reza Gholizadeh – Yeah. Adaptive was launched in, as you mentioned, in 21. Initially, it was offered as a more dynamic solution for clients that want a real-time adjustment to the market dynamics. They wanted the algo to understand the real-time dynamics of the market and shape the execution around the way price action is in real time. Over the years, we have taken a data-driven approach towards building many customizations for clients that want a more sophisticated features within the algo, it now involves a lot of more real-time analytics. We have recently built an automated and systematic back testing framework that is able to provide more transparency to clients as to how their performance looks like in different market environments in compared to different alternative scenarios. Back when it was launched, that was around 20% of our market tracking algos flow. Today, as we speak, the flow that we’re seeing at Adaptive is closer to 50, 60% of all of our market tracking algos. That shows the improvements that our clients have been able to achieve in their performance by using our sophisticated tools at Adaptive, and that has shown in the growth in Adaptive flow over the years.

Terry Flanagan – Pulling it forward as of Q1 2026, Adaptive is offering tailored execution speeds, as you mentioned, based on each client’s unique trading history. How specifically will this help JP Morgan’s trading clients?

Reza Gholizadeh – Yes, absolutely so, as I mentioned in the previous question, the automated back testing framework that we built is aiming at providing transparency to clients as to how our models see their trading behaviour and the market dynamics around their trading behaviour compared to what we expect the impact of their trading to be. And that could very well be different for different clients. Clients, by choosing tailored solutions, can now fully outsource their choice of algo configuration to JP Morgan to tailor based on their recent six-month history and our models and the way we know the algo logic works in the back end. And by doing so, there can they can achieve best performance, minimize their market impact, and at the same time, minimize their time and risk in this more volatile market environment.

Terry Flanagan  – Reza, thanks so much for being with us. Enjoy the rest of the conference.

This year, US equity markets have been shaped by record trading volumes, high retail participation, and a growing number of new venues entering the space. Gregory Corrigan, head of equity and FX trading at Legal and General Asset Management, discusses the trends driving trading patterns in 2025; how equities desks are adapting their execution strategies and venue selection in trickier liquidity environments despite high activity, and how the rise of alternative trading venues is shaping US market structure.

Looking ahead, Corrigan also unpacks the growing discussion around longer trading hours, the impact of new exchanges shaking up the current model and other structural reforms such as REG NMS.

Interview

Jo Gallagher Describe the backdrop—what has been driving trading patterns and equities volumes this year?

Gregory Corrigan Well, in the first half of the year, the period heading into “liberation day” and the volatility that followed certainly set the scene for equity volumes this year. In the US, we’re averaging around 17 billion shares per day, which is 40% higher versus the previous record set last year. On a notional basis, we are also breaking records. We are averaging close to $800 billion per day which is 30% higher versus last year. Retail investors are certainly playing their part as they have been buying aggressively since April 9th. Estimates suggest retail have been net purchasers of stocks 17 out of the last 19 weeks, which is one of the longest streaks that we’ve seen. Retail investors are particularly active in stocks that are priced below $5, which makes up around a third of the volume on any given day. So that is certainly adding to the jump in share trading we’re seeing. 17 of the largest share trading volume days of all time have come this year, with a peak being 30 billion shares, and that’s the one and only time we’ve seen that in history, which was April 9th, where we got a tariff pause and the S&P rallied nearly 10%. When it comes to spreads, record-breaking volumes don’t necessarily mean tighter spreads in the equity market. We’ve been seeing wider spreads on average versus the five-year average, and on particularly volatile days, like in the first half of the year, we were seeing spreads hit 15 to 20 basis points, which is three to four times wider than normal. Part of the reason is down to higher prices, so higher prices do indeed lead to wider spreads and more intra spread trading. The average price of a large-cap stock is now around $215, and nearly 10% of all stocks in the US have a price of $200 or more. As a result, we are seeing off-exchange volume continuing to climb.

Jo Gallagher So how are equities desks adapting their execution strategies and their venue selection process in these trickier liquidity environments?

Gregory Corrigan First of all, traders should adjust their strategy based on the time of day. So at the beginning of the day, they should try and trade more passively. Then towards the end of the day, in the final 10 minutes, it can be incredibly beneficial to traders looking to access more liquidity, as we see a spike in volumes here with about 25% of the day’s volume going through in this period. Traders should also endeavor to tap into non-displayed liquidity by utilizing a suitable algorithm to do so, prioritizing cleaner venues, which can help traders limit their impact in the market. As a result, we are seeing performance improvements due to reduced market footprint, avoiding what can be adverse selection from more toxic order types. And as these cleaner venues are not always part of the price formation process, it means that traders are not having an impact on the screen price of the stock.

Jo Gallagher What broader impact are these buy-side liquidity demands having on US market structure?

Gregory Corrigan We are seeing the rise in alternative venues, such as Trajectory Cross and other innovative venue types that are helping traders limit this impact in the market. ATSs now make up over 10% of the volume on a given day. And within that, trajectory crosses are on the rise. Time-based trajectory simply allows two sides of the trade to match off each other at the volume-weighted average price over a particular time period. Analysis shows this results in minimal markets for orders interacting with this order type. And we are seeing VWAP slippage as a percentage of spread hit the lowest I have ever seen. Other innovative venues that are gaining in prominence are those with sophisticated matching logic. One Kronos is one that comes to mind. This venue works by running auctions every 100 milliseconds or so, and orders are matched on an aggregate notional price improvement basis. We are seeing more liquidity migrate to this type of venue as the markets are extremely low with the quality of the liquidity extremely high, resulting in significant performance improvements.

Jo Gallagher As you mentioned, there are a lot of new alternative venues entering space. What else is on your radar that has the potential to change market dynamics over the next few months?

Gregory Corrigan In addition to new ATS launches, we are preparing for new exchanges to come to the market as well. We’ve heard a lot about the potential for round-the-clock trading, and this year, 24X became the first SEC-approved national securities exchange that offers trading 23 hours a day, five days a week. 24X will compete with the likes of Blue Ocean, NYSE ARCA, Cboe Global Markets, and likely others will come to the table to offer this model as well. There is still a huge amount to do though, and the use case for institutional investors remains somewhat unclear. On the issuer side, it is also heating up in terms of competition, with several new exchanges having either filed or planning to. Texas Stock Exchange, Green Impact Exchange, and the Dream Exchange all come to mind. NYSE have also announced their plans to launch NYSE Texas, an electronic equities exchange. We will also have an SEC roundtable in September to discuss trade-through prohibitions in the national market system stock markets. This roundtable will allow industry participants to comment on REG NMS and the potential for SEC rule changes. This certainly has potential to change the equity market structure and landscape, and is something all market participants should be keeping a very keen eye on.

Jo Gallagher Thank you Greg, for your insight, and of course you for watching. This has been TraderTV This Week.

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The Trader TV Awards were held on the evening of 6 March 2025 at the Oriole in Covent Garden, and what a fun night was had by all.

Congratulations to the winners who won the popular vote among our Trader TV subscribers:

• Favourite insight on ‘Trader TV: This Week’ – Paul Squires of Invesco
• Best overall contributor on ‘This Week’ – Sally Bartunek of Ninety One
• Most engaging human interest story – Dan Burns of Virtu
• Most insightful market guidance – Ben Ashby of Henderson Rowe
• Most interesting thematic interview – Hannah Baum of JP Morgan
• Interview that announced the best new product or service – Darren Smith of Liquidnet
• Best update on markets across all show formats – Lee Bartholomew of Eurex and Mike Du Plessis of TP ICAP
• Greatest revelation on Trader TV – Olivier Cajfinger of JP Morgan
• Best market structure insights – Adam Conn of Baillie Gifford

Our guests and the Markets Media team were treated to an excellent range of cocktails selected by our own mixologist, Hamish McArthur, and some wonderful presenting from our guests on stage JP Morgan, Cabrera Capital Markets, MarketAxess, Mizuho and Tradeweb.

Thank you to everyone who came, an evening of conversation, great company and sterling performances. We will look forward to seeing you again next year…

Markets have seen a busy start to the year, with no signs of respite on the horizon. Sarah Harrison, senior portfolio manager (PM) at Allspring Global Investments, discusses how markets have reacted to Donald Trump’s return to the White House last week (Jan 20 -24) and how it has impacted fixed-income liquidity.

In this episode, Harrison discusses the conflict between fiscal and monetary policies in the US, as the Trump administration introduces potentially inflationary policies such global trade tariffs, and central banks, such as the US Federal Reserve and the European Central  Bank, will have to decide whether to cut interest rates this week. The senior PM unpacks her views on rates for this year and how desks should be thinking about this.

Harrison also discusses her outlook on the growing levels of global debt, the high cost refinancing for corporates and how this spells the need for a disciplined market strategy and risk appetite.

Interview

Jo Gallagher Welcome to Trader TV This Week your insight into your trading desks can prepare for the week ahead. I’m Jo Gallagher. Today I’m joined by Sarah Harrison at Allspring Global Investors to discuss the main topics and events leading this week. Sarah, welcome to the show.

Sarah Harrison Thank you.

Jo Gallagher So we’ve had the first week of Trump back in the White House. What have you seen in terms of market reaction and liquidity across fixed income? And have you seen any surprises?

Sarah Harrison We’ve had a bit of a volatile start to the year. Treasury yields have been moving higher since about mid-December. But actually, we’ve now seen a bit of a respite in the days leading up to the inauguration and since the inauguration. The high-yield market has been healthy. Bonds have been trading up. The new issue pipeline is there, but not overwhelming. So things are chugging along quite nicely now. That being said, in our view, a lot of the pro-U.S. growth trade is already priced in and has been priced in since last year, leading into the election result and then post the election result. So now we’re in a bit of a wait and see mode to get the detail of what’s going to happen over the next four years. There’s no playbook for this presidency. There is the potential for significant deviation from the status quo if you take the rhetoric at face value. As a result, we are positioned quite defensively, really focused on maximizing income due to a combination of the potential for volatility, high income on offer, and some fair distressed valuations across asset prices.

Jo Gallagher There’s this tug-of-war between fiscal and monetary policy, particularly in the US. What is your take on how central banks will decide on interest rates going forward and how should trading desks be thinking about that?

Sarah Harrison So our view going into 2025 is that there is a high likelihood of central bank policy divergence. What is currently being priced into the market is 1 to 2 cuts in the US and then 3 to 4 cuts in Europe. Front loaded for Europe. There is the potential for the Fed to undershoot if some of the inflationary policies the new administration has discussed come to fruition, which not necessarily but potentially constrains what the ECB will do. We see that as a second half of the 2025 story and possibly a non-event if the ECB is aggressive in the first half of 2025. As for the impact on high yield, these are all just risks that we’re thinking about. The trajectory for interest rates is still very likely lower from here, which is broadly supportive of levered credits.

Jo Gallagher We have global debt levels ticking up coupled with the high cost of borrowing. How are you seeing that hit the high yield market?

Sarah Harrison So we’re not far off local tights in high yield and for good reason. Corporate fundamentals are strong and the technical has been supportive. That being said, given the view that there is the potential for a resurgence of inflation in the US and subsequent limit to how easy monetary policy will be this year, not a base case, but a possibility. Our view is that you aren’t really being paid appropriately for risk way down the credit spectrum. So we continue to be underweight triple C’s. It’s still a good time for quality income. What do you think about the total return potential, the asset class, as long as you demonstrate discipline in a time of exuberance.

Jo Gallagher Many corporates will also have to think about the high cost of refinancing, as well as the dreaded maturity wall this year. How are you strategizing and planning for that?

Sarah Harrison So something we have been paying close attention to and didn’t think would be a major issue in 2024 was the maturity wall. We still don’t see it being a major issue in 2025. But we do see it being a bigger issue than last year. We hold the view that the build-up of the maturity wall is simply corporate treasurers being savvy about hanging onto lower coupon debt for longer. Rates have come down and they are continuing to come down. So, you know, they made the right call. But rates perhaps have not come down as much as some treasurers had hoped. And this means that there will be some situations where capital structures have become unsustainable and will need to be dealt with. This is another plug for staying disciplined in a time of exuberance, being underweight triple C’s and employing a heavily fundamentals driven research process like ours.

Jo Gallagher Thank you, Sarah, for your insight, and of course, you for watching this has been Trader TV This Week.

Catch the show each week:

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Or make sure to follow us on LinkedIn – Trader TV’s LinkedIn

Available as a podcast – here

As investors are seeking better access to exchange-traded derivatives to express ideas into the market. In order to optimise execution quality, Liquidnet has launched a new offering in the space to deliver a data-enhanced agency model for the buy-side, to iron out liquidity gaps in certain geographies and to support traders moving into the ETD markets.

Darren Smith, head of execution and quantitative services at Liquidnet, explains that as generalist and multi-asset traders engage more in the listed derivatives space, Liquidnet’s pre-trade ETD analytics and metrics on volume, touch liquidity and hidden liquidity as designed to elevate their capabilities from the get go.

Dan Burns talks about his career path from school leaver to sales trader at Virtu Financial, the importance of a diverse skills base on the trading desk, and the value of capacity to learn and to swim in the deep end when starting trading.

He also explains that understanding how much one needs to bring to the role, what can be learned on the desk and the value of support from an employer, are all key elements to fostering talent in the trading team, which can be stressful but also thoroughly enjoyable.

Filmed at FIX EMEA Conference 2024.

The use of credit futures for strategic, tactical and hedging purposes; they complement cash instruments and allow investment firms to avoid prohibitive liquidity premia while managing portfolios effectively.

Trader TV spoke with Oriana Papetti, head of derivatives at Eurizon, a €381 billion AUM asset manager, and Lee Bartholomew, head of derivatives product R&D for fixed income and FX at market operator Eurex, to examine how buy-side firms are using them, what the impact is on investors, and the advantages predicted as markets expand in depth and breadth.

Sally Bartunek, trader at Ninety One

Sally Bartunek, trader at Ninety One, discusses how markets have woken up following the hotter-than-expected inflation data out of the US and how it’s impacting fixed-income asset allocations.

Bartunek also tells Trader TV how she’s concerned about the recent flurry of corporates such as Altice and Lumen, pushing back on creditors to restructure their debt and accept haircuts. She looks at the risks involved for investors and the impact on price volatility.

In emerging markets, Bartunek also unpacks the recent slew of fallen angels; and the surprising moves she is seeing in High Yield debt and Latin American (Latam) issuance.  

We have an extended version of the show only available to our email subscribers. In the full show, Bartunek breaks down the wider implications of the US’s move to a shorter settlement cycle on global investors, in the face of the impending deadline on May 28.

Subscribe here – https://tradertv.net/subscribe

If you didn’t sign up ahead of Monday’s newsletter that went out at 6.45 London time, please contact Josephine.gallagher@tradertv.net to be sent the full show.

North America: Weekly Review and Outlook on Markets

• Last week, US equities volumes were down and bid-ask spreads looked much wider than the current-year average
• Last week, US investment grade volumes were up marginally relative to 2024 levels and bid-ask spreads continued to improve week on week.
• This week’s data: US Retail Sales out on April 15, Canada’s Inflation Rate is expected on April 16,
• This week in primary equities: 5 IPOs expected to price. The biggest deal should be Ibotta Inc. at $450 million.

Europe: Weekly Review and Outlook on Markets

• Last week, Volumes and notional values well below levels seen in Q1 and bid-ask spreads saw one of the worst weeks this year.
• Last week, EU IG volumes declined over the last 3 weeks and bid-ask spreads are tight relative to the year-to-date average.
• This week’s data: UK’s Unemployment Rate is out April 16, and the UK and EU’s Inflation print is out on April 17.
• This week in primary equities: UK’s Unemployment Rate is out April 16, and the UK and EU’s Inflation print is out on April 17.

Interview Transcript

Presenter Jo Gallagher To kick us off put this week into context for us. What do we expect from markets this week and what’s your trading desk be focusing on?

Sally Bartunek You know, we’ve had a few weeks of some complacency in the market pre CPI. And when it surprised to the upside I would say that the market woke up a little bit. It generated some volatility so I think going forward we’ll continue to be data dependent and the big one to watch out for is retail sales. It just really gives a glimpse into what the Fed might do later on this year.

We also have earnings on stack as well. Last week we saw asset allocation offs coming through just because of the back up in yields. We saw some massive inflows into the US IG market because of the all-in-yield buyers waking up and stepping in. But then we saw some outflows on the Latam local REIT side because they use U.S. Treasuries as a proxy so some stops went through in the markets.

So it would really be interesting to see if that asset reallocation conversation continues and if there’s anything that might move the needle where investors will make a jump either way.

Presenter Jo Gallagher We’ve had some instances of major corporates pushing back on creditors to accept losses. How concerning is that for the debt markets and what might that mean for price volatility?

Sally Bartunek I would say it’s very concerning in that we, as investors, have to really scrutinize our credit selection process and really weed through those covenants to protect ourselves.

Some of these companies have a really high interest burden at the moment their funding costs are a bit higher than they’ve seen in the prior years, and because of that, they’re looking to cut costs by potentially making investors take a haircut. In one instance, Altice, when their restructuring headlines came through it generated some really strong price volatility.

Take into consideration the subordinate paper that they had in the span of two days. They moved 40 points lower. And during that interim, just from watching from the outside in, you can see dealers making these wide markets like five, ten-point markets on the screens just to try to generate some flow and price discovery there.

From our perspective, if we were to be put in that situation, it really is about communication between the traders and the PMs and what their end goal is.

There are investors that might be looking to throw in the towel, so not having a price limit on those bonds will help just really trying to weed through to find the other side. Whereas if you do have a price limit because you think that there isn’t much more downside, it helps to work in order with a dealer to see if they can find another side to match your level.

Presenter Jo Gallagher What parts of the high yield market such as downgrades maybe or defaults? Should fixed income traders be paying close attention to?

Sally Bartunek Well, we’ve seen an uptick in fallen angels. So basically bonds from IG ratings to high yield. But that hasn’t really affected performance in the way that you think it might.

Just speaking about high yield supply for a moment, we’ve seen over the past year issuers that were highly levered try to come to market and investors just weren’t biting and they were unable to refinance some of their debt or even just get the initial funding.

But the issuers that are a bit more high quality were able to come to market. And what that means is, compared to the IG markets, supply has undershot a bit and there’s a duration factor. So high yield duration is a little bit lower because the refinancings just weren’t there.

So the maturity stack up a little bit shorter whereas an IG duration is a little bit higher. So they were sensitive to the moves from last week. So if you look at total returns, high yield is still net positive for the year, whereas IG is negative due to the rate movements.

Presenter Jo Gallagher Looking at emerging markets, what are some of the interesting signs that we’re seeing in terms of corporate issuance?

Sally Bartunek It was surprising. In the first quarter, we saw a slew of issuances come through, and some of these issuers, we thought that they would wait for the local elections to come through, and they didn’t. And it looks like they are trying to get ahead of that potential volatility.

And then also some of them had funding needs where they had negative carry. So instead of losing money on that negative carry they came to market and invested in T-bills instead. So that’s a couple of examples of issuers that did come through. But there are some that were waiting and thought that we would get rate cuts by now. And they’re kind of kicking their issuances down the road.

I will say that the surprise and issuance has helped with secondary liquidity in the Latam corporate space, because those issuers have come to market and generate funding for those issues. And that’s names that we haven’t seen come out in size sometimes in the secondary markets. So it’s really helped generate some liquidity there.

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(Price volatility, inflation, markets, debt restructuring)