TradeTech Europe 2023: Day 2 Round-Up

What an incredible day 2 here in Paris at TradeTech Europe. As the largest gathering for Global and European heads of equity trading with over 1000 attendees, today has been nonstop networking and benchmarking with numerous connections made and meaningful conversations being had. It is safe to say this might be the best TradeTech yet.

Picking up from yesterday’s discussions on evolving regulations and changes in market structure, today’s debates have kept to the same incredibly high standard. We started the day with our conference director, Susie Benaim’s welcome address and a few opening remarks from our chairperson Alan Guild, director of Hilltop Walk Consulting.

The key topic on everyone’s mind this morning was building the desk of the future, starting with a keynote panel which discussed growing multi-asset demands and how heads of equity trading can implement the right skill set to build a high-performing business. Speakers included Marc Wyatt of T. Rowe Price, Rafa Lopez-Espinosa of Point 72, and James Munro of Man AHL who all shared some very interesting insights.

With recession looming and inflation rising, having a solid economic outlook for the next 12 months is crucial. This will involve tightening monetary policies and finding the best ways for your company to adapt trading strategies.

A round-up of day two would not be complete without mentioning the showstopping keynote speech from non-other than Sir Tony Brenton, former British Ambassador to Russia. His riveting address dove deeper into the questions on everyone’s mind surrounding the Ukrainian war and where we can expect it to take the world. This is a topic having major impacts on traders, so it was no surprise that our auditorium was full of attendees ready to hear Tony speak.

Following some well-attended workshops and networking sessions, attention turned to capitalising on ETFs and how best to tap into new opportunities being presented. As our speakers explained, there are innovations emerging to diversify portfolios and the opportunity to access new liquidity pools in already stressed markets.

Although AI is regularly a priority for traders, our industry experts inspected the issue more closely, particularly in relation to liquidity pools and enhancing price discovery. These speakers included George Marootian of Natixis Involvement Management, Daniel Leon of HSBC Asset Management, Jesse Greif of OneChronos and Matthew Cousens of BestEx Research. It was incredible to see such a fresh spin on a recurring topic.

The day concluded with an incredibly engaging session working towards defining the future buy side wish list. This top-of-the-market discussion laid out specifically where the buy side should be investing in the next 12 months and which new up-and-coming industry innovations will add the most value to their businesses. Once again TradeTech Europe has set the bar through its ability to get key industry trends and initiatives straight to our traders so they can drive their businesses forward.

After 2 days of expert discussions, we look ahead to the next year with much optimism. There are great opportunities for traders to grab from ESG to adapting to regulation. After a year of uncertainty and instability from inflation and the Ukrainian war, heads of equity trading have shown just how resilient they are in an already fragmented market. There are brilliant things on the horizon and we cannot wait to hear all about these new developments at TradeTech EU 2024.

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