Credit Suisse, UBS duke it out over electronic trading

Well done, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, ITG and Morgan Stanley: you placed respectably well in categories related to electronic trading in AsianInvestor’s survey of buy-side traders of Asian equities.

But the industry is clear: this field remains a duopoly between Credit Suisse and UBS.

Asked ‘which firm is best for electronic trading’, Credit Suisse narrowly took first place – but UBS actually won more individual votes.

AsianInvestor asked respondents to pick their top three brokers, but rank them in order of preference, and we gave extra weight in order of that preference. We also gave some extra weight to respondents from shops with bigger AUM (taking into account size differences between long-only and hedge funds).

So when the dust settled, those weightings gave CS a bigger score even though UBS had more votes.

The survey was conducted over the course of September from an eligible universe of 400 traders across 173 buy-sides.

We solicited nominations of top clients from sell-side institutions, and buy-sides nominated by multiple brokers were included in the eligibility pool. We ultimately received responses from 96 individuals from across 56 firms, of which about one-third were hedge funds and two-thirds were long-only desks.

Responses were weighted according to number of participants per buy-side firm, size of Asian equity assets, and (when asked to select up to three answers) in order of preference.

The full results of the survey will be published in the forthcoming October edition of AsianInvestor magazine.

CS and UBS wrestled across the questions in our section on electronic trading. UBS was voted as having the best access to dark liquidity (although long-only desks actually preferred Liquidnet). Credit Suisse was voted as having the most innovative trading algorithms, although hedge funds preferred UBS.

CS had the edge when it came to which firm has the most innovative smart-order routing, and also topped the poll for best execution consulting, although here, again, UBS enjoyed more nominal votes.