About a-team Marketing Services
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry
The knowledge platform for the financial technology industry

A-Team Insight Blogs

Bouchard Rolls AlgoFast Event Driven Trading Platform

Subscribe to our newsletter

Chicago-based Bouchard Systems has unveiled its AlgoFast suite of execution software, focused on processing machine readable news feeds to drive trading decisions. In its first release, the software supports trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, with execution via Interactive Brokers.

Founder Justin Bouchard – who comes with many years of cross-market trading experience – says the software was originally written to simplify the details of the trading algorithms that he had designed: “I wanted a logic window to explain things verbally in plain English instead of trying to read through equations and code.”

Moreover, Bouchard was interested in trading based on underlying events, not on the price movements they triggered. “I needed a system that could trade economic numbers, earnings reports, and other event trading opportunities dynamically. If an economic number came out farther away from the expected number on the street, I wanted to trade more contracts and pay up farther through the market.”

[See video on Gradient Scale Event Trading]

AlgoFast relies on machine readable news feeds from the likes of Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones, which pre-process raw text and present key parameters in numeric form, which can be readily fed into a trading algorithm. The software – which would be either installed at a trading firm’s office or co-lo presence – has an ‘event to trade’ latency of less than a millisecond – significantly faster than a trader’s ability to react to news.

In the future, Bouchard plans to add direct trading support for other markets, such as Eurex, NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX. A web-based version of the suite for equities is also planned.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Related content

WEBINAR

Recorded Webinar: Unlocking Competitive Edge with Outsourcing and Managed Services in Trading Technology

Outsourcing has emerged as a strategic solution for capital markets firms as trading technology infrastructures become more complex, data volumes grow exponentially, and regulatory pressures intensify. .By leveraging third-party expertise, firms can optimise operations, reduce costs, and focus on innovation in their trading technology stack. Outsourcing potentially enables firms to scale seamlessly, meet regulatory reporting...

BLOG

24-hour Derivatives Trading – Is this Really a Good Idea?

By Paul Cottee, Director, Regulatory Compliance, NICE Actimize. Are we soon to face a market with 24-hour a day derivatives trading? It might well be coming sooner than we think. Currently, the ongoing debate in the US derivative markets has been significantly influenced by the recent proposal issued on April 21 from the Commodity Futures...

EVENT

Data Management Summit New York City

Now in its 15th year the Data Management Summit NYC brings together the North American data management community to explore how data strategy is evolving to drive business outcomes and speed to market in changing times.

GUIDE

AI in Capital Markets: Practical Insight for a Transforming Industry – Free Handbook

AI is no longer on the horizon – it’s embedded in the infrastructure of modern capital markets. But separating real impact from inflated promises requires a grounded, practical understanding. The AI in Capital Markets Handbook 2025 provides exactly that. Designed for data-driven professionals across the trade life-cycle, compliance, infrastructure, and strategy, this handbook goes beyond...