Bloomberg Enhances Rule Builder

Bloomberg says it has delivered several enhancements to its multi-asset trading solution Rule Builder, aimed at improving asset managers’ efficiency when using rules-based trading strategies.

Rule Builder allows users to create rules within the Bloomberg Terminal that automate actions on selected orders. These auto-routing rules can be shared, modified, enabled or disabled across a trading desk. While it does not given actual numbers, the firm says Rates activity automated through the service has more than doubled since 2021, with year-to-date volumes until April 2023 reaching all-time highs for active users and trading activity. In addition, it says an analysis of trading data shows a nearly five-fold increase in round-lot activity (>$5 Million), with more clients increasing the size of their orders automated using Rule Builder.

Three main enhancements have been delivered, according to Bloomberg, timed release; order rerun; and integrated economic data. With timed release, clients can write rules for trades, to delay an order by either a fixed amount of time or to a certain point in the future such as a particular market close. This enables them to automatically route orders to market to hit a certain benchmark time or to access markets that they wouldn’t usually access due to a difference in trading hours, Bloomberg says.

Users also now have the ability to set up rules for trades that immediately re-submit a trade in the event a rules-based trade does not execute, such as limited dealer response or the limit price is not met. This helps increase the likelihood of execution for the same order, Bloomberg says.

The final enhancement involves the addition of data from economic releases being integrated into the rule-based workflow, enabling clients to manage risk and volatility trading across asset classes during significant market movements. Orders can be queued to appear in a fixed income EMS (TSOX) during the rules-specified time period, such as five minutes prior to or 10 minutes following an announcement.

“Effective automated trading solutions improve productivity and support the customized ways in which market participants look to access liquidity,” says Colby Jenkins, strategic advisor, capital markets at Aite-Novarica. “This enables firms to focus on high-value activities to support their clients in a constantly changing market environment. Consistently enhancing these tools is key to meeting firms’ increasingly sophisticated and continually evolving portfolio and trading strategies.”
Ravi Sawhney, global head of trade automation and analytics at Bloomberg, adds, “As automation is now critical to our buy-side clients’ trading workflows, they need solutions that deliver innovative capabilities that help in both boosting productivity and demonstrating execution performance improvements.”