Specialty practice · Sell-Side Trading Infrastructure
Pre-trade risk that cannot be bypassed.
Global execution, exchange connectivity, infrastructure resilience, and enterprise security — engineered for desks that cannot afford a bad print.
Overview
Sell-side infrastructure earns its keep at the pre-trade risk gate — the one control that protects the firm whether the strategy is right or wrong.
What it is
Connectivity, risk, and resilience for the path.
Sell-side trading infrastructure spans direct market access, sponsored access, FIX gateways, co-location, drop-copy, and the operational telemetry that ties them together. Each layer carries regulatory and capital weight; each one fails in characteristic ways.
We design these systems as a single path. Pre-trade risk is a non-negotiable hop. Co-location is engineered with measurement, not assumption. FIX integration handles venue idiosyncrasies as a first-class concern.
Workflow
Order routing, end to end.
- Client submits an order through DMA or sponsored access.
- Pre-trade risk (highlighted) gates the order — it cannot be skipped.
- FIX gateway forwards the order with session and drop-copy management.
- The co-located match engine fills the order at the venue.
- The fill flows back through a drop-copy to the client for reconciliation.
Deliverables
What you walk away with.
- DMA / sponsored-access topology with explicit pre-trade risk policy and audit trail.
- FIX integration: session management, drop-copy, and venue-specific extension handling.
- Co-location plan: rack, cross-connect, NIC, and venue-side path measurement.
- Resilience design: failover, drop-copy reconciliation, and disaster-recovery rehearsal cadence.
- Operational runbook: kill-switch procedure, exception handling, and venue-change tracking.
Pitfalls
How we don't do it.
- Treating pre-trade risk as a feature flag — it is a control with regulatory teeth.
- Co-locating without a measurement plan to know whether the budget is being met.
- Operating drop-copy reconciliation as an afterthought instead of a continuous control.
- Allowing sponsored-access clients onto the path without per-tenant limits and audit.
Engagement
How we work with you.
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01
Assess
Current path, risk controls, venue connectivity, and where p99 hurts.
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02
Design
Topology, co-location strategy, and pre-trade risk policy that cannot be bypassed.
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03
Build
FIX, DMA / sponsored-access, drop-copy, and the operational telemetry.
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04
Operate
Capacity reviews, venue-change tracking, and continuous resilience rehearsal.
Need a path you can defend in front of a regulator?
Bring us the venues, the clients, and the risk profile. We'll come back with a topology and an operational plan that holds under scrutiny.
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