By Jon Light, Senior Director of Product Management at Devexperts.
US futures markets have gone from strength to strength in recent years, reflecting recognition among investors of this instrument as a highly effective way to express directional views and hedge risks pertaining to the global economy.
Retail traders, too, continue to flock to futures due to their accessibility, transparency, and affordability. From global currencies and commodities like crude oil and precious metals, to equity indices, interest rates, and crypto; investors are increasingly choosing to access the world’s markets through this one regulated instrument.
To serve this growing market, Devexperts launched a version of its award-winning DXtrade platform tailored specifically for futures and options brokers. The initiative was informed by many years of experience in providing bespoke development services to numerous US firms specializing in exchange-traded derivatives.
This domain expertise has contributed to the creation of a powerful futures trading platform that’s cost-effective and easy to integrate. The platform allows brokers to easily expand their offerings into futures and options with all the instrument-specific features needed by both internal risk management teams and end traders.
The platform can be launched as an out-of-the-box solution or can alternatively be customized to suit each venue’s specific requirements. Enterprise grade market data is included courtesy of dxFeed, including real-time Level 1 and Level 2 quotes, and options Greeks calculations. Any US futures exchange can be integrated, and with several pre-existing integrations with futures commission merchants, the platform is a stand-out choice for any futures broker wanting to enter the market quickly and to make an impression once there.
DXtrade is designed to be lightweight, low latency, and intuitive to use whether accessing it via desktop, tablet, or mobile. In keeping with current UX expectations, its dynamic charting interface satisfies even the most demanding chartists. Also, with DOM ladder trading, users can enter positions directly from the futures ladder while viewing precisely the liquidity available at each price tier. In addition to this, the platform includes a heatmap tool, trading journal, and pre-built option strategies.
Options, too, are an instrument gaining a great deal of ground among retail investors. DXtrade features professional options trading tools, meaning that end traders are well-served as they gain experience and become more demanding in terms of the strategies they want to deploy. Traders can start out with vanilla futures, progress to more challenging strategies like futures spreads, then options on futures, options spreads, and even complex multi-leg options. The point being that the platform has more than enough headroom to accommodate traders of all levels of experience. DXtrade also supports “option levels” allowing brokers to set the maximum complexity that different groups of traders are permitted to take.
On the back end, DXtrade can calculate SPAN margin requirements in real-time and features built-in pre-trade validation and real-time exposure monitoring to ensure that margin requirements are satisfied and that automatic liquidations take place in the event of unforeseen market events. Brokers can define their own risk management rules, allowing them to offer intraday margin discounts and set custom liquidation levels according to their own risk management practices, as well as implementing trading limits on contract sizes, time of day, or specific instruments on a per account or group basis.
Finally, DXtrade has also become a one-stop-shop for retail prop trading firms currently undergoing the much discussed “futures pivot.” As prop firms increasingly move away from CFD-like products to regulated futures markets for their trading challenges, they require platform solutions that can handle the complexity of futures and options markets, while also integrating seamlessly with competition software. DXtrade is rapidly becoming the platform of choice for such firms owing to its extensive derivatives trading capabilities, rapid time to market, and wide variety of ready-made integrations for prop firms to choose from.
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