Managed Funds Association

February 10, 2014

MFA Presentation before the 

CFTC Technology Advisory Committee 

Meeting On

Risk Controls and System Safeguards for 

Automated Trading Environments

Stuart J. Kaswell

Executive Vice President and Managing Director,

 General Counsel
Managed Funds Association

• MFA represents the majority of the world’s largest hedge funds

and is the primary advocate for sound business practices and

industry growth for professionals in hedge funds, funds of funds

and managed futures funds, as well as industry service providers.

Our members serve pensions, university endowments, and other

institutions.

• MFA members are active participants in the futures, options and

swaps markets; and as fiduciaries to their funds and as investors

themselves, MFA members share with the CFTC a strong

interest in ensuring that the U.S. regulatory framework for

derivatives markets is robust and evolves to serve the needs of

our investors.
Introduction

The U.S. derivatives markets, like other industries, have and

continue to transition from manual processes to electronic

or automated processes.

Technology presents opportunities as well as challenges.
Risk Controls & System Safeguards

ADDRESSING NEW RISKS

• Technology has changed the operational, infrastructure and

security risks that market entities and participants face.

• To deter and prevent market disruptions and to protect market

participants, it is necessary to address risk controls and system

safeguards with respect to ALL electronic trading, and not just

automated trading or so-called HFT.

– For example, SEC staff found from its review of sudden

price spikes, or so-called “mini-flash crashes,” that these

types of events “tend to be triggered by old-fashioned human

mistakes.” Speech by Gregg E. Berman, Associate Director, SEC, at the SIFMA Tech

Conference, June 18, 2013.
Risk Controls & System Safeguards

OVERVIEW

• The CFTC has implemented a robust derivatives market

framework that:

– Requires FCMs, SDs and MSPs that are clearing members to establish

risk-based limits based on position size, order size, margin requirements,

or similar factors; and requires those entities to use automated means to

screen orders for compliance with the risk limits when such orders are

subject to automated execution;

– Requires DCMs to establish and maintain risk control mechanisms to

prevent and reduce the potential for price distortions and market

disruptions; and

– Requires SEFs to establish and maintain risk control mechanisms to

prevent and reduce the potential for market disruptions.
Risk Controls & System Safeguards

REGULATORY FRAMEWORK

Recommendation: Address market risks by centralizing risk

controls in the following ways:

1) Require that trading platforms have appropriate risk control mechanisms,

and policies and procedures to ensure that they operate as intended;

2) Require that clearing firms—effectively, the gateways to the markets—

have financial and regulatory controls to reduce the risks associated with

market access; and

3) Require that DCOs, trading platforms, and intermediaries provide realtime, post-trade reports that market participants can use to enhance

monitoring of all their trading activities.

Marketplace Risks are a shared responsibility. The optimum

approach recognizes the different roles of market utilities,

intermediaries and market participants/customers.
Pre-Trade Risk Controls

PRE-TRADE RISK CONTROLS

Recommendation: CFTC should require intermediaries

and/or trading platforms to implement:

• Maximum Order Size or “Fat Finger” Limit – CFTC should

require such controls at the intermediary and/or trading

platform-level; and apply to all market participants—whether

manual traders or those trading through ATSs.

• Credit Risk Limits – CFTC should require limits at the

intermediary and/or trading platform-level. Such controls would

help mitigate a customer ATS software malfunction.
Pre-Trade Risk Controls

PRICE COLLARS AND TRADING PAUSES

Recommendation: Trading platforms should:

• Coordinate price collars for linked equity products – Price collars

in the futures markets have been effective in supporting the

maintenance of fair and orderly markets. With respect to linked equity

products, equity market and derivative market price collars should be

coordinated.

• Adopt trading pauses for derivative products that are related to a

security undergoing a trading pause – After the Flash Crash, the

equities markets implemented circuit breakers. When a security is

undergoing a trading pause, trading platform rules should address

whether a related exchange-traded derivative product should also be

paused or halted from trading.
Post-Trade Reports

ORDER REPORTS, TRADE REPORTS, AND POSITION REPORTS

Recommendation: The CFTC should amend and broaden its regulations

to require trading platforms, FCMs and/or DCOs to provide real-time

Post-Trade Reports to market participants and their clearing firms.

• Trading platforms and/or DCOs should provide, in real-time, postorder receipts or “drop copies,” post-trade drop copies, and postclearing or “position” reports (“Post-Trade Reports”) to customers.

• CFTC Rule 1.33, which requires an FCM to provide a customer

with a written confirmation of a commodity interest transaction by

the next business day is outdated.

– Even e-commerce customers receive real-time electronic receipts for online

purchases. Trading in commodity interests should be no different.
Trade Cancellation & Adjustment Policies

TRADE CANCELLATION AND ADJUSTMENT POLICIES

Recommendation: Trading platforms should adopt clear, objective

trade cancellation and adjustment policies that limit administrative

discretion and instill accountability; and require that market

participants report trade errors as soon as they are identified.

• Trading platforms should have clear, objective trade cancellation and

adjustment policies.

– Clear and objective rules would decrease uncertainty among market participants,

especially during times of market distress.

– Such policies should apply consistently across market participants.

– In promoting market integrity, policies should instill a reasonable level of

accountability on market participants.

• Trading platforms should require market participants to report trade

errors as soon as they are identified.
System Safeguards

“KILL SWITCH” CAPABILITIES

Recommendation: Market participants operating an ATS and

trading platforms should each have the capability to disconnect

the ATS from trading platforms in the event a software glitch or

other unforeseen reason makes it necessary.
System Safeguards

“KILL SWITCH” CAPABILITIES

• Market participants that operate ATSs

should have the capability to disconnect

their ATSs from trading platforms in the

event a software glitch makes it necessary.

• A trading platform should also have the capability to cancel working

orders from an individual market participant or clearing firm in

emergency situations and as a last resort.

• While trading platforms should have clear, objective policies and

procedures detailing circumstances that warrant use of a kill switch,

they should also have some flexibility based upon experience with

the trading style or strategies of a market participant; clearing firm;

or instruction by the market participant at issue.
Design, Testing & Supervision of ATSs

DESIGN, TESTING, AND SUPERVISION OF ATSS

Recommendations:

• The industry should engage in more robust and more routine

testing of trading software at the trading platform-level.

• In addition to individual testing, trading platforms should offer

integrated or holistic testing where a firm’s software interacts

with others.

• Policies and procedures that may be feasible for market utilities

or service providers may not be appropriate or as effective when

applied to each customer that has an algorithmic or quantitative

component to their trading/investing.
Other Comments

MINIMUM RESTING PERIODS

Recommendation: The CFTC should NOT adopt a minimum

resting period or other mechanism to slow down the markets as

such mechanisms will likely be more harmful to investors.

• A minimum resting period would allow other market participants to pick

off orders on an order book that become stale when the market moves

and trade against the relevant positions.

• It would, therefore, reduce market participants’ ability to react to

changing market conditions and leave them exposed to market

movements.

• By creating more risk for market participants to place an order, a

minimum resting period would incentivize market participants to place

fewer orders and of smaller size which could ultimately lead to a

widening of spreads and decreased market liquidity.
Other Comments

HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING

Recommendation: The CFTC should not adopt a definition for

HFT, nor should it create such a registration category; instead, it

should focus on detecting and prosecuting manipulative or

fraudulent market activity.

• Technology is, and has been, a tool for market participants to

implement their trading strategies with lower overall transaction costs.

• Technology has not created a new class of market participants.

• HFT “describes the usage of sophisticated technology that implements

traditional trading strategies.”*

• As such, Regulators should continue to focus on market activity

rather than the means of transaction delivery or trying to define HFT.

* See Peter Gomber et. al., High Frequency Trading, Goethe Universitat, Frankfurt Am Main.
Thank you

• MFA appreciates the opportunity to present its

views to the Technology Advisory Committee

• MFA appreciates the assistance of:

– MFA Trading & Markets Committee

– Jennifer Han, Associate General Counsel, MFA