NEW YORK, Oct 28, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX News Network/ -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch today announced the expansion of its global algorithmic trading platform into Brazil to meet increasing demand from international and local investors for more sophisticated trading products designed for Brazil's Bovespa.
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The new offering includes several of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's most popular algorithms, including implementation shortfall and VWAP.
"Interest and liquidity in Brazilian stocks have risen significantly this year and as a result our international investor clients are asking for more sophisticated trading tools to access this market," said Steve Schneider, head of Latin America Equities at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "We are also seeing increasing demand from our local high-touch trading clients, many of whom are now looking forward to using these new trading tools in Brazil," he added.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has adapted its algorithmic trading suite for use in more than 30 countries, and since combining earlier this year, the group has made more than 50 specific enhancements to its core algorithmic offering, yielding improved performance for clients.(1)
"We are well-versed in customizing our offering for new markets, and relied heavily on local trader feedback when fine-tuning our algos for the Bovespa," said Lee Morakis, head of Execution Services Sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "Our clients now have a robust new channel for accessing Brazil's equity markets, complementing our full-service sales, trading and research operation in Sao Paolo."
Bank of America Merrill Lynch's award-winning algorithmic trading platform provides a suite of fully anonymous, flexible algorithms with access to unique forms of liquidity, including 15 core equity and six core options algorithms. Clients can customize algorithms to conform to their goals and benchmark risk tolerance, and use them to express views on alpha horizon, momentum vs. mean reversion, and stock performance in absolute or relative terms.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a leading global provider of equity and options trading, sales and research services to mutual funds, hedge funds, broker-dealers, pensions, endowments and other institutions. Its algorithmic trading platform has earned awards for price improvement, anonymity, ease of use and cost.(2) Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a member of more than 80 exchanges worldwide and has maintained a presence in Brazil for more than 50 years.
Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company's corporate and investment banking, and sales and trading businesses operate under the Bank of America Merrill Lynch brand. Bank of America Merrill Lynch focuses on middle-market and large corporations, institutional investors, financial institutions and government entities. It provides innovative services in M&A, equity and debt capital raising, lending, trading, risk management, research, and liquidity and payments management. Bank of America Merrill Lynch serves clients in more than 150 countries and has relationships with 99 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 companies and nearly 96 percent of the Fortune Global 500.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the marketing name for the global banking and global markets businesses of Bank of America Corporation. Lending, derivatives, and other commercial banking activities are performed globally by banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including Bank of America, N.A., member FDIC. Securities, strategic advisory, and other investment banking activities are performed globally by investment banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation ("Investment Banking Affiliates"), including, in the United States, Banc of America Securities LLC and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, which are both registered broker-dealers and members of FINRA and SIPC, and, in other jurisdictions, locally registered entities. Investment products offered by Investment Banking Affiliates: Are Not FDIC Insured * May Lose Value * Are Not Bank Guaranteed
(1) For example, our redesigned limit order model contributed to a nearly 20% improvement in VWAP performance, based on a three-month review of several hundred thousand orders.
(2) The Trade (Jan-Mar 2009)
SOURCE Bank of America Merrill Lynch
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