Patent Publication Number: US-2016232611-A1

Title: Event Triggered Trading

Description:
RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/743,243 filed May 2, 2007 (attorney docket no. 006119.00086), entitled: “Event Triggered Trading”, the disclosure of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. 
    
    
     TECHNICAL FIELD 
     Aspects of the invention relate to systems, apparatuses, and methods for managing trading of investment vehicles. In particular, aspects of the invention relate to automated trading of investment vehicles according to triggering events. 
     DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART 
     Trading systems, such as algorithmic trading systems, automatically submit orders for financial instruments on electronic trading platforms. The systems use econometrics, financial mathematics, stochastic, artificial intelligence and other sophisticated mathematical models for making transaction decisions. The models may evaluate data according to rules that determine an optimal time to enter an order to a market. For example, a trading system may evaluate market data to determine the timing and volume for an order to minimize the impact on a price for the financial instrument. 
     The data evaluated by many algorithmic trading systems is limited to information that results from the market itself, such as market data (e.g., stock price, trading volume, etc.) For example, many algorithmic trading systems evaluate market data received from an exchange to identify pricing and pricing trends. The market data is transmitted from the exchange to the algorithmic trading system, where it is evaluated. When criteria are met, the algorithmic trading system automatically submits an order to the exchange. The transmission of data to and the orders from the algorithmic trading system is plagued with latency and delays. A trading system using a low-bandwidth, high-latency telecommunications service provider may suffer, for example, a disadvantage compared to a trading system connected through a high-bandwidth, low-latency telecommunications service provider. 
     At least one trading system (e.g., Reuter&#39;s NewScope program) appears to permit a trader to establish trading strategies based on events that may occur outside of a market or exchange. To do so, a trader may program his or her personal computer to buy or sell a stock automatically based on a news announcement. The trading system scans a live news feed (e.g., a live news feed from Reuters) to parse news items and watch for the relevant news stories. Nevertheless, the trading system suffers from the same dependency on the bandwidth and latency constraints of its telecommunications service provider. Furthermore, the trading system may suffer from incorrect and/or inaccurate scans of a live news feed that result in an incorrect trade being automatically executed. 
     Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a system, apparatus, and method for managing trading of investment vehicles that overcomes one or more of these limitations. 
     BRIEF SUMMARY 
     By way of introduction, a conditional buy/sell order may be submitted to an exchange and executed when an external condition, such as an announcement of the Federal Reserve on interest rates, is met. The exchange receives the order, and may place the conditional order in a queue until an expected announcement of event occurs. A data feed carrying standardized information related to events is received at the exchange. When information related to a conditional order is received, the orders in the queue conditioned upon the event may be triggered. The conditional orders may be executed or cancelled. A confirmation message may be transmitted to the trader who placed the conditional order. Likewise, when it is determined that the event occurred, but the condition, or desirable outcome, did not occur, the trader may be notified and given the option to modify the order, before it is cancelled. 
     A computer-implemented system for use in an exchange for a financial instrument is disclosed in accordance with just one aspect of the invention. The system may comprise an order receiving device, an order storage device, an event feed, a matching engine, and an order processing device. A trader may submit a conditional order to the exchange in accordance with aspects of the invention. The conditional order may be conditioned upon the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of predetermined events occurring outside of the market for the financial instrument. 
     The foregoing summary is provided only by way of introduction. The features and advantages of aspects of the invention may be realized and obtained by the instrumentalities and combinations pointed out in one or more of the claims. Nothing in this section should be taken as a limitation on the claims. Additional features and advantages will be set forth in the description that follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of aspects of the invention. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       Examples of event triggered trading systems are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which components, features and integral parts that correspond to one another each have the same reference number, wherein: 
         FIG. 1  shows an exemplary system that may be used to implement aspects of an event triggered trading system; 
         FIG. 2  shows a method that may be used to, among other things, receive, process, and execute event triggered orders and, 
         FIG. 3  shows an illustrative method of monitoring predetermined events in accordance with one or more aspects disclosed herein. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The event triggered trading systems may take physical form in certain parts and steps, embodiments of which will be described in detail in the following description and illustrated in the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof. Event triggered trading systems, methods and apparatuses may be achieved in many different forms, formats, and designs and should not be construed as limited to the exemplary embodiments set forth herein. One or more embodiments in accordance with aspects of the invention may administer, communicate, manage, place, enter, receive, match, clear, present, display, store, execute, and/or confirm orders that may be triggered according to events that occur outside a market for the financial instrument of the order. 
     Embodiments may take the form of one or more devices, systems, distributed networks, data processing systems, processes, electronic hardware, computer software, firmware, including object and/or source code, and/or combinations thereof. Embodiments may be stored on computer-readable media installed on, deployed by, resident on, invoked by and/or used by one or more data processors, controllers, computers, clients, servers, gateways, networks of computers, and/or any combinations thereof. The computers, servers, gateways, may have one or more controllers configured to execute instructions embodied as computer software. Embodiment may be transmitted as a carrier signal from a first electronic device to another electronic device. The carrier signal, when received at an electronic device and executed by a processor, may provide a means for event triggered trading in accordance with aspects of the invention. 
     An illustrative embodiment may include software stored and/or executed on one or more matching engines, or servers, having electronic components configured to carry out instructions according to a computer program stored on a computer-readable storage medium, such as a memory, hard disk, CD-ROM, optical storage device, magnetic storage device and/or combinations thereof to match event triggered orders for financial instruments. The matching engine may communicate with an associated memory (e.g., storage device) comprising one or more queues for in which conditional orders are temporarily stored pending the occurrence or non-occurrence of an external predetermined event. A data feed may be used by the matching engine to receive standardized information concerning the occurrence or non-occurrence of the event. When the data is received via the event data feed, the orders in the associated memory (e.g., conditional order queue) conditioned upon the event are processed by the matching engine along with all other orders processed at the matching engine. 
     Aspects of event triggered trading may be implemented with electronic computing devices and/or networks (e.g., Internet, telecommunication networks, local area networks, wide area networks, private proprietary networks, etc.) configured to allow users to exchange and submit trading information. An illustrative trading network environment for submitting, storing, and matching event triggered orders, or conditional orders, for financial instruments and methods thereof in accordance with various aspects of the invention are shown in  FIG. 1 . 
     An electronic trading system, such as the Globex® trading system, may be associated with an exchange  100 . In an embodiment, the electronic trading system is a combination of globally distributed computers, controllers, servers, networks, gateways, routers, databases, memory, and other electronic data processing and routing devices. Using an order entry device  102 , a conditional order  108  for one or more financial instruments may be placed with the exchange  100 . The order entry device  102  may be any type of electronic computing device having a processor configured to execute coded instructions stored on or resident on a data storage medium. In one embodiment, the order entry device  102  may be a remote trading terminal or personal computer. The order entry device  102  may communicate with the exchange  100  over a network communication, such as, but not limited to, the Internet, a T1 line, a common local area network (LAN), radio, wired telecommunications network, wireless telecommunication network, etc. 
       FIG. 1  describes a system comprising one or more electronic computing devices that cooperatively provide for the management of the trading of investment vehicles. In one illustrative embodiment, the system may be comprised of an exchange  100 , one or more order entry devices  102 , and an event feed provider  130 . A trader may create and submit conditional orders in accordance with aspects of the invention. In one embodiment, a trader (or any person interested in creating and/or submitting a purchase/sale of a financial instrument) may use an order entry device  102  to create and/or submit a conditional order to an exchange. Computer-executable instructions (e.g., software, firmware, etc.) on the order entry device  102  may provide the trader with a graphical user interface to visually construct the conditional order, including selecting one or more triggering conditions for the conditional order. The triggering conditions may be stored in a data storage device  106  in the exchange  100 . 
     The event feed provider  130  may provide data corresponding to an occurrence (or non-occurrence) of a predetermined event. The data transmitted through an event feed  104  may be provided by a news reporting service (e.g., Associated Press, Reuters, etc.) or any other data distribution provider that has agreed beforehand to provide the exchange  100  with a predetermined data value upon the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of an event corresponding to a predetermined triggering condition. In one example, the event feed provider  130  may be a handheld computing device (e.g., a PDA, blackberry, mobile phone, laptop, etc.) that a news reporter (or other member of a reporting service) may use to enter information relating to the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of a predetermined event. For example, a news reporter attending a press conference of the Federal Reserve Bank may report that the Chairman has announced that interest rates will be increased by ten basis points. The event feed provider  130  device may format the information into a predetermined format and transmit directly to one or more exchanges  100  via an event data feed  104 . Alternatively, the information entered at the event feed provider  130  may be transmitted to one or more computers controlled by the news reporting service where it is processed and/or routed to an exchange  100  via the event data feed  104 . 
     The exchange  100  may receive the event feed  104  through a predefined interface and route the generated event notification messages to the appropriate devices and/or engines. The event feed  104  may comprise data structured in a standardized format (e.g., in a predetermined structured format and/or using a predetermined communication protocol) which can be more easily and/or efficiently processed than a standard news feed known to one of skill in the art. One of skill in the art will appreciate after review of the entirety disclosed herein that various techniques may be employed in determining a standardized event feed format, including payload optimization, latency, packet loss, and other considerations. 
     The data of the event feed  104  may be transmitted in various ways, including but not limited to, in the form of data packets, messages, and/or streamed data. In one example, the event feed may not include any commentary in order to minimize any risk of misinterpretation. The exchange  100  may include an event feed comparator  118  to compare the data of the event feed  104  with a plurality of predetermined values indicating the occurrence of a triggering event. In one example, messages sent via the event feed  104  may include a header identifying the message as carrying information related to a predetermined event, the source of the message, and/or the targeted recipients for the message. The header may also identify a class of information or the contents therein. The information in the message may be compared against a log and/or index of pending conditional orders (e.g., temporarily stored in the order storage device  114 ). The comparison may be performed by an event feed comparator  118  to identify one or more pending conditional orders in the collection of conditional orders (e.g., in a queue  124  in the order storage device  114 ) which may be affected by the data provided in the message of the event feed. 
     For example, an exchange  100  may be interested in providing traders with an option to submit a conditional order triggered by a Federal Reserve announcement of an interest rate change. In such an example, a news reporting service may transmit a data value of “FR_IR_UP” over the event feed  104  to indicate that the Federal Reserve has announced an upward change in the interest rate. The news reporting service may transmit a data value of “FR_IR_DOWN” over the event feed  104  to indicate that the Federal Reserve has announced a downwards change in the interest rate. Meanwhile, the news reporting service may transmit a data value of “FR_IR_SAME” over the event feed  104  to indicate that the Federal Reserve has announced that the interest rate shall remain unchanged. At least one benefit of providing a predetermined data value over an event feed  104  to the exchange  100  is that the response time for triggering a conditional order after the occurrence of an event is enhanced. Furthermore, the risk of inaccurate automated parsing and/or human interpretation of a conventional news feed is reduced. A event feed comparator  118  may perform a comparison of the data of the event feed  104  with list of predetermined data values that trigger a triggering condition, and may output, in one example, a Boolean true or false to indicate a match or no match. 
     In another example in accordance with aspects of the invention, the event feed  104  may include messages that indicate that the Federal Reserve has announced that it will raise prime interest rate by 0.25%. A comparison may be made to identify any conditional orders that are conditioned on such a Federal Reserve announcement. The triggering condition may be that the announcement will be to raise rates at least 0.25% or some other condition associated with the announcement. For each order in the collection of orders  124  for which the triggering condition has been determined to be met will be dumped to the matching engine  112  for processing. The collection of conditional orders may be stored in the buffer, until predetermined expiration time or until an event upon which the order is conditioned occurs. Likewise, the orders may be stored until after a period of time that an event is expected to occur, but does not. After the complementary orders are matched, the post match processing may provide clearing and confirmation processing. 
     A list of predetermined triggering conditions corresponding to the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of an event may be maintained in the memory of a data storage device  106 . The data storage device  106  may be configured to store a plurality of predetermined triggering conditions corresponding to the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of predetermined events. A conditional order  108  in accordance with aspects of the invention is different from well-known conditional orders based solely on a market price of a financial instrument (e.g., limit order, stop order, trailing-stop order, etc.). A conditional order may be a bid, offer, buy, sell order for any financial instrument conditioned upon the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of a triggering vent that occurs outside of a market or an exchange. The triggering event is not dependent on the market, orders in the market, prices, or pricing trends. The triggering event may be a measurable occurrence outside of the market for financial instruments. The triggering event may affect changes in a market or market conditions. The triggering event may occur at a predetermined time and/or date, or may be a random or arbitrary occurrence. Some examples of triggering events include, but are not limited to, Federal Reserve announcements, cash earning announcements, trial verdicts, occurrence of natural phenomena, and other events such as those described in the “CME 2007 Economic Release Calendar,” which is herein incorporated by reference (and publicly available for download at http://www.cme.com/files/economicreleasecalendar.pdf) and provided in an information disclosure statement accompanying the filing of this disclosure. 
     By way of example, a predetermined triggering condition may correspond to the event of Acme Corporation declaring bankruptcy. A trader may use the predetermined triggering condition (e.g., the occurrence of the event where Acme Corporation declares bankruptcy) in creating and submitting a conditional order in accordance with aspects of the invention. The exchange and/or other entity/person may select one or more predetermined events to provide as the basis for triggering conditions in the data storage device  106 . At least one benefit of providing a list of predetermined events to traders is the potential for enhanced liquidity at the time of the triggering condition. 
     The plurality of predetermined triggering conditions may be made available to traders (and others) through an order entry device  102 . The order entry device  102  may be configured to permit a trader (or other interested user) to create and submit a conditional order  108  to the exchange  100 . In one example, the order entry device  102  may be a conventional personal computer (with at least a microprocessor  128  and memory  126 ) running software with a graphical user interface for permitting traders to easily create condition orders  108  in accordance with aspects of the invention. The graphical user interface may permit a trader to select (e.g., using a graphical dropdown box) from among a plurality of triggering conditions and financial instrument identifiers to create the conditional order  108 . The order entry device  102  may access the data storage device  106  to obtain the plurality of predetermine triggering conditions for selection by the user. 
     Moreover, the order entry device  102  may be used to submit the conditional order to the exchange  100  in advance of the predetermined event. Therefore, a trader may develop a trading strategy based on predetermined events occurring outside of a market for the financial instrument and submit multiple trades accordingly to the exchange  100  in advance of the events occurring. In one or more embodiments, the trader may experience the additional benefit of priority over other traders with a similar trading strategy based on his or her submitting the trade to the exchange  100  earlier. 
     An order receiving device  110  at the exchange  100  receives the conditional order  108  and routes the conditional order  108  to the appropriate device/system. The order receiving device may be configured to receive a conditional order  108  for a financial instrument (e.g., MSFT, GEM, etc.) in accordance with aspects of the invention. The order receiving device  110  may be an interface for receiving conditional orders  108  into the exchange  100 . The order receiving device  110  may be a portion of one or more other devices/system in the exchange  100 . For example, the order receiving device may be comprised of computer-executable instructions running in a computer (e.g., mainframes, servers, gateways, controllers, desktops or computer with a 64-bit processor) of the exchange  100  that parse the contents of a conditional order  108 . The order receiving device  110  need not be a physically separate and distinct computing device. Rather, in some embodiments, the order receiving device  110  may be a component located on the same computing device as one or more of the other devices/components depicted in  FIG. 1 . 
     In one embodiment, a conditional order  108  may be immediately routed to the matching engine  112  for processing. The matching engine  112  may determine that the conditional order is not ready to be triggered until a later date, or it may determine that the conditional order is ready for immediate execution or cancellation (depending on the data of the event feed  104 ). In one embodiment, the conditional order  108  may be analyzed and routed to the order storage device  114 . In such an embodiment, the order receiving device  110  may parse the conditional order  108  and determine that the triggering condition of the conditional order  108  cannot be triggered until a future date. Therefore, the order receiving device  110  may route the conditional order  108  to the order storage device  114  for temporary storage until the triggering condition is met. 
     The order storage device  114  may be configured to store the conditional order in associated memory. The associated memory may be located internal to or external to the order storage device  114 , so long as the order storage device  114  is able to read and write to the computer memory. At least one benefit of locating the order storage device  114  with its associated memory inside the exchange  100  is the reduced latency following the occurrence of a triggering condition or event and the execution of the respective conditional order. Since a conditional order  108  in the order storage device  114  has already been processed by the order receiving device  110  and is already inside the exchange  100 , the conditional order  108  has a greater probability of being executed by an order processing device  116  before other orders. In contrast, an order triggered outside the exchange  100  by software monitoring an external event (e.g., the Federal Reserve raising interest rates) must travel over some telecommunication network (with a latency) to be processed by the order receiving device  110  at the exchange  100  before making its way to the matching engine  112 . 
     The associated memory of the order storage device  114  may be divided into a plurality of storage areas. Each of the storage areas may correspond to a different triggering condition. For example, three queues may be allocated in the memory of the order storage device  114 . One queue may be assigned to a triggering condition corresponding to an event relating to the Federal Reserve. Another queue may be assigned to a triggering condition corresponding to an event relating to the credit rating of Acme Corporation (e.g., whether Acme Corporation is filing for bankruptcy, whether Acme Corporation is rated with an ‘A’ grade by Moody&#39;s, etc.). Yet another queue may be assigned to a triggering condition corresponding to an event relating to the weather (e.g., whether there was greater than normal rainfall in a particular region over a period of time). The conditional orders corresponding to a particular triggering condition are stored together in a queue. The conditional orders in each queue may be processed with a first-in-first-out (FIFO) behavior, a last-in-first-out (LIFO) behavior, or any other technique known to those of skill in the art. For example, under a FIFO implementation, a first conditional order submitted to the exchange  100  a day before a second conditional order will be triggered and sent to the matching engine  112  (and subsequently the order processing device  116 ) before the second conditional order. Therefore, a first trader that develops a trading strategy and submits conditional orders  108  based on that strategy before a second trader may enjoy a slightly quicker order execution than the later trader. 
     Referring to  FIG. 1 , a matching engine  112  configured inside the exchange  100  to trigger a conditional order in response to the data of the event feed  104  is illustrated. The matching engine  112  may be used to match orders, or bids/offers and/or buys/sells, for a financial instrument. The financial instrument may be any investment vehicle including stocks, bonds, commodities, T-bills, securities, futures, ETF&#39;s, options, and any other appropriate financial product. The matching engine  112  may be implemented with software and/or hardware that executes one or more algorithms for matching orders. 
     In accordance with aspects of the invention, the matching engine  112  may be comprised of a matching event engine  120  and a matching order engine  122 . The matching event engine  120  may be configured to determine if data of the event feed  104  matches the conditional order  108 . In one embodiment, the event feed comparator  118  may be used in cooperation with the matching event engine  120  to determine if data of the event feed  104  matches the conditional order  108 . Once it is determined that the conditional order  108  has been triggered, the matching event engine  120  may be used to identify opposing conditional orders that may be matched (e.g., paired up) and sent to the order processing device  116  for execution processing. In an alternative embodiment, the matching event engine  120  may route the conditional orders to the matching order engine  122  for other processing. 
     The matching engine  112  may comprise a matching order engine  122  configured to receive a conditional order  108  from the matching event engine  120  and to determine if market conditions match the conditional order. At least one advantage of some embodiments of the invention is that the matching order engine  122  of the exchange  100  need not necessarily be modified when implementing aspects of the invention. Rather, in various embodiments where the data of the event feed  104  matches the triggering condition of the conditional order, the matching event engine  120  may remove the triggering condition of the matched conditional order  108  before sending the conditional order  108  to the matching order engine  122 . 
     In one example, a conditional order  108  may comprises a plurality of triggering conditions. Therefore, the matching event engine  120  may remove only the triggered condition from the plurality of triggering conditions of the conditional order when the data of the event feed  104  matches. In such an example, the modified conditional order may be sent to the order storage device  114  for temporary storage again while it awaits the occurrence of its other triggering conditions. One of skill in the art will appreciate that any number of conditional triggers are contemplated for a conditional order in accordance with aspects of the invention. 
     The matching engine  112  may be configured to match orders submitted to the exchange&#39;s trading system. The matching engine  112  may match orders according to currently known or later developed trade matching practices and processes. In an embodiment, bids and orders are matched on price, on a FIFO basis. The matching algorithm also may match orders on a pro-rata basis or combination of FIFO and pro rata basis. Other processes and/or matching processes may also be employed as are known by those of skill in the art. 
       FIG. 2  illustrates a method that may be used to match event triggered orders for financial instruments, in accordance with various embodiments of the invention. In step  202 , a computing device (e.g., order receiving device  110 ) may receive a conditional order for a financial instrument. The conditional order  108  may be sent from an order entry device  102 . The conditional order  108  may comprises a financial instrument identifier and a triggering condition corresponding to an occurrence of a predetermined event outside of a market for the financial instrument. 
     In step  204 , the conditional order may be stored in a storage device in the exchange  100 , as explained in detail earlier. The order storage device  114  and/or order receiving device  110  may identify (in step  204 ) the appropriate queue  124  in the storage area of the order storage device  114  for temporarily storing the conditional order. The order of placement in the queue  124  may be important because in various embodiments, a conditional order with a particular triggering condition may be assigned a higher priority in the queue than a second conditional order with the same triggering condition simply because the second conditional order arrived later at the exchange  100 . Therefore, in various embodiments, traders may create and submit conditional orders  108  weeks (or any other period of time) in advance of a predetermined event in order to gain the greatest advantage in having their trade executed before others. In some embodiments, the exchange  100  may process orders without regard to priority, or may assign priority using a myriad of other considerations that would be appreciated by those of skill in the art. 
     In step  206 , data from an event feed is received at the exchange  100 . The data may correspond to the occurrence of a predetermined event outside of the market for the financial instrument. As explained earlier, the event feed may be provided in a standardized, predetermined format so as to minimize any possibility of data misinterpretation relating to an event&#39;s occurrence. 
     In step  208 , the event feed comparator  118  compares the data received via the event feed with the triggering condition of the conditional orders stored in the order storage device  114  queues  124 . One skilled in the art will appreciate that various techniques may be used for quickly comparing the event feed data value with the many triggering conditions pending with the conditional orders. For example, a hashing system may be used. In another example, queues may be setup for different triggering condition groups to divide and conquer the task of comparing the data values. 
     If a match is found in step  208 , the conditional order  108  is matched in the matching engine  112  and sent to the order processing device  116  for execution. A message may be generated (in step  216 ) to report the execution of the conditional order for the financial instrument to the trader (i.e., user) of the order entry device  102 . 
     Alternatively, if a match is not found in step  208 , then the exchange  100  (e.g., matching engine  112 , matching event engine  120 ) may determine whether the conditional order has expired (in step  212 ). The conditional order may have expired if the triggering condition has passed and a triggering of the event is no longer possible. For example, if the triggering condition corresponded to the consumer confidence index numbers for the specific month of October 2005 being reported above a certain threshold, then the conditional order will have expired in November 2005 because the triggering condition will have already been reported and will not be reported again for that month. In such cases, the conditional order is canceled in step  214 . The trader is sent a reporting message indicating that his or her conditional order has been cancelled (in step  216 ). Alternatively, the trader may be provided with an option to modify his or her conditional order and/or to execute the order with the triggering condition removed. 
     Furthermore, the method steps illustrated in  FIG. 2  may be stored as computer-executable instructions on a computer-readable medium. The computer-executable instructions may be executed by a microprocessor to perform the method steps described herein. Although various embodiments have been described and illustrated, the description and illustrations are by way of example only. Many more embodiments and implementations are possible within the scope of this invention and will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The various embodiments are not limited to the described environments, and can be applied to a wide variety of activities. 
     In addition, in accordance with aspects of the invention, an order entry device  102  is disclosed comprising a memory  126 , a microprocessor  128 , a visual display (illustrated in  FIG. 1, 102  as a computer monitor display) and a user input device (illustrated in  FIG. 1, 102  as a computer keyboard). The memory  126  may contain a computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions for execution by the processor  128 . The instructions may be embodied, in one example, as computer software running on a personal computer behaving as an order entry device  102 . The software may generate a graphical user interface for presentation on the visual display in order to permit the user to create a conditional order  108 . The user may select from among a plurality of predetermined triggering conditions and financial instrument identifiers to create a conditional order. After receiving the parameters of the conditional order  108 , the software may submit the conditional order to the exchange  100  in which it is directed. The user may receive an indication message from the exchange  100  displaying the status of the conditional order (e.g., executed, cancelled, pending, waiting, etc.) 
     Referring to  FIG. 3 , in accordance with various aspects of the invention, the event feed  104  may be sent from a computing device  130  of a provider company to the exchange  100  for the financial instrument. The provider company and the exchange may have established and agreed upon a predetermined protocol and structure for transmitting the data of the event feed. Furthermore, an exchange  100  (or representative of the exchange  100 ) may transmit a plurality of predetermined events to the provider company to indicate which predetermined events the company will monitor to determine its occurrence (or non-occurrence). After receiving this plurality of predetermined events (in step  302 ), an employee (or other staff) at the provider company may monitor (in step  304 ) the occurrence of events relating to predetermined events. If the predetermined event occurs (step  306 ), the employee may enter the predetermined data values onto the event feed  104 . The data may then be transmitted (in step  308 ) via the event feed to the exchange  100 . The exchange  100  may perform a comparison on the data of the event feed  104  with a plurality of triggering conditions using the event feed comparator  118 . As explained earlier, the other devices and/or engines/module of the exchange proceed to interact to process the conditional order accordingly. 
     The operations of computer devices and systems shown in  FIG. 1  may be controlled by computer-executable instructions stored on computer-readable medium. For example, computer device  116  may include computer-executable instructions for receiving order information from a user and transmitting that order information to exchange computer system  100 . In another example, computer device  118  may include computer-executable instructions for receiving market data from exchange computer system  100  and displaying that information to a user. 
     Additional servers, computers, handheld devices, personal digital assistants, telephones and other devices may also be connected to exchange computer system  100 . Moreover, the topology shown in  FIG. 1  is merely an example and that the components shown in  FIG. 1  may be connected by numerous alternative topologies. 
     It is intended in the appended claims to cover all such changes and modifications which fall within the true spirit and scope of the invention. Therefore, the invention is not limited to the specific details, representative embodiments, and illustrated examples in this description. Accordingly, the invention is not to be restricted except in light as necessitated by the accompanying claims and their equivalents.