System and method for listing offerings of commercial paper and other interests
A system and method for electronically evaluating and trading CP and short-term interests is presented. The system includes a buyer terminal coupled to a trading system. The buyer terminal includes a display device for displaying offerings of the interests and an input device for entering one or more investment criteria. The system includes a data store of offerings of a plurality of trading parties (e.g., issuers and/or dealers). The system also includes a server implementing search engine functions for selectively identifying responsive offerings and retrieving from the data store information relating to the responsive offerings of the plurality of trading parties. The system transmits the retrieved offerings information to the buyer terminal for display. Preferably, the offerings information of at least two trading parties is displayed in an integrated fashion. The system may present a summary view of the offerings information with a count of the identified offerings of each of the trading parties. The investment criteria include buyer-defined values for terms of the offerings such as, for example, maturity, minimum size, minimum yield and credit ratings of the interests. The investment criteria may also include parameters that specify an order for displaying the retrieved offerings. A method for electronically evaluating short-term interests includes the steps of: entering investment criteria; selectively retrieving offerings information from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria; and presenting an integrated display of the retrieved offerings information. In one embodiment, investment criteria may be stored. The stored criteria may be retrieved and applied to identify offerings of the plurality of trading parties such that current offerings of the interests may be identified over a period of time.
A portion of the patent disclosure document contains material subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONThe invention relates to electronic systems and methods for facilitating trading, and for trading commercial paper (“CP”) and other short-term interests.
CP is an unsecured promissory note issued by a corporation (e.g., financial, industrial, public) or a municipality to pay a stated amount on a stated maturity date not more than 270 days from issue. CP is typically issued with very short maturity, e.g., less than 30 days. There is both a primary and secondary market for CP. In the primary market, CP is issued directly by the issuing corporation or municipality, or by selected dealers (direct issue paper). In the secondary market, CP is sold by dealers only (dealer paper).
The secondary market has not developed as well as the primary market. One reason is the relatively short CP maturity date causes many investors to hold CP until maturity.
Nevertheless, the number of daily CP offerings is quite large and buyers, e.g., money market portfolio managers, must preview large numbers of offerings from numerous dealers to evaluate price and yield levels and to determine competitive offerings. While the preview and evaluation process has been facilitated by electronic systems, further improvements are needed to keep pace with advances in electronic trading systems for securities and other interests, and to advance the state of the art of electronic trading systems for CP and other short-term interests.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONThe invention provides methods and systems for facilitating trading of short-term interests, and for trading short-term interests, and provides for one or more of the following with respect to evaluation and trading of CP offerings and other short-term interests (sometimes referred to below simply as “offerings”):
facilitating identification and preview of offerings of short-term interests;
identifying offerings in accordance with buyer-defined values and terms;
presenting (e.g, displaying on a computer controlled display device) information relating to offerings identified as satisfying one or more criteria such as investment criteria from more than one trading party;
when applicable, integrating a presentation that shows two or more trading parties with offerings that satisfy one or more criteria such as investment criteria and/or a presentation that provides information regarding offerings of two or more trading parties that satisfy such criteria;
providing an interactive selection of offerings of a group of authorized trading parties (e.g., dealers and/or issuers);
providing for trading parties to selectively enable potential buyers;
providing for buyers to selectively authorize potential trading parties.
The invention provides a computer system and method that store offerings of multiple trading parties (e.g., dealers and issuers) and, responsive to a search query (profile) input, provide a summary presentation showing information relating to all offerings of all trading parties responsive to the query. Information relating to responsive offerings of all trading parties are integrated in the summary presentation.
In a preferred embodiment, the summary presentation lists each trading party with a responsive offering together with the number of responsive offerings and, preferably, with the highest yield for the responsive offerings of each trading party. Also, in a preferred embodiment, the summary presentation may sort retrievals or search results in accordance with any appropriate sorting criterion or criteria, e.g., by the number of offerings responsive to the query or by yield. This enables one to scan a presentation and quickly prioritize review of offerings.
In a preferred embodiment, the computer system and method also store investment criteria for each offering of each trading party. The investment criteria include buyer-defined values and terms of the offerings, such as, for example, maturity, minimum size, minimum yield, credit ratings of the interests and issuer name, specified individually or in any appropriate combination. In one embodiment, the investment criteria include information defining a sorting criterion or criteria. Also, search results may be displayed in a user-specified sequence. For example, the results of a search may be sorted such that offerings are presented by one, or a combination, of yield, maturity, size, discount and/or issuer. Search queries (profiles) may also be saved for later reuse. Keywords may be associated with the saved search queries to facilitate identification and retrieval thereof.
Further, the inventive computer system and method provide for navigating through a summary display on a computer controlled display device to view individual offerings and information of any trading party with one or more offerings responsive to the query. These features enable a buyer to prioritize a selection of offerings and, thus, complete transactions more efficiently.
The inventive computer system and method also provide a two-tiered enablement function to trading parties. In the first tier, a trading party may selectively limit the offerings shown to potential buyers (i.e., selectively provide authority to view offerings to buyers). As such, a buyer may view the offerings of only a subset of trading parties or a subset of the offerings of any trading party. In a second tier, even if a buyer may view offerings of a particular trading party that has “enabled” the buyer, the trading party may prohibit the buyer from “executing” or trading the presented offerings. Although an enabled buyer may initiate a transaction by performing an execute function, completion of the transaction is controlled by the trading party. Thus, the trading party may selectively enable buyers to execute trades on offerings.
In a preferred embodiment, the inventive computer system and method provide a trading party the ability to “tag” its inventory of offerings as “auto-executable,” “negotiable,” . . . “dealer approval required.” An auto-executable offering is completed when the buyer initiates the execution function to trade at the presented price, maturity and settlement. For negotiable offerings, in addition to executing the offering, the buyer may alter its terms, e.g., increase or decrease its rate. Upon receiving an altered offering, a trading party accepts or rejects the altered terms of the offering. Offerings tagged “dealer approval required” must be reviewed and approved by the trading party before the transaction is completed. Dealer approval offerings might be preferred by trading parties that desire a greater degree of control over each transaction.
In one embodiment, the inventive computer system and method may permit authorized traders within a buyer's firm to specify a subset of trading parties from which traders from that firm can buy. In this embodiment, not every person authorized to trade in a buyer's firm need be enabled to view and execute all offerings of a particular trading party.
The computer system implementing the invention may be used to facilitate trading of short-term interests in a trading system, and may incorporate or be coupled to a trading system. An inventive computer system includes data storage for storing data relating to offerings of the trading parties, and a central computer or computers, e.g. a server, and software for implementing search engine and database management functions to execute searches, retrieve responsive information and provide for presentation of responsive information. The central computer(s) any implement other functions as well. The search engine identifies and retrieves information relating to offerings and other information responsive to queries entered by buyers on buyer terminals. In a preferred embodiment, the buyer terminals, which include a computer controlled display device such as a monitor on which the displays are presented as screens, are coupled to the central computer(s) by a communications network. The buyer terminals also include a data input device, e.g., a keyboard and/or pointing device such as a mouse, used for example to navigate among screens or drill into a dealer's offerings as discussed herein, and also preferably include a computer device and a logical storage device. These implement an interface (e.g., GUI), including the summary display, for communicating with the central computer(s). The inventive system may also include an interface between the actual computer(s) and the buyer terminals, e.g., the Bloomberg ProfessionalSM interface.
An inventive method includes performing the following steps with the aid of a computer system: entering one or more investment criteria; identifying offerings from a plurality of trading parties in accordance with the investment criteria; and presenting information relating to responsive offerings of all trading parties together. In one embodiment, the method presents the number of responsive offerings of each trading party. Responsive retrievals or search results may be sorted in accordance with sorting information such as the investment criteria discussed above. The investment criteria may be stored, and the stored criteria may be retrieved and associated with offerings of the plurality of trading parties such that current offerings may be identified over a period of time.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
In these figures, the same reference numerals are used in different figures to refer to the same or similar or corresponding elements.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTSSystem Architecture:
The interface 30 is also coupled to one or more dealer/issuer terminals or systems 32, which may also be coupled to the BOOM system 40 so that trading data may be transmitted between the BOOMSM system 40 and the dealer/issuer terminals 32. As discussed in more detail below, data regarding offerings may be transmitted by the dealer/issuer terminals 32 for storage in the BOOMSM system 40. Similarly, terms set by a potential buyer regarding trades of short-term interests may be transmitted from the BOOMSM system 40 to a particular dealer/issuer terminal 32 for approval by a trading party.
As shown in
The BOOM system 40 includes a central computer or computers, e.g., a server or servers, 42 having a processor or processors and programming implementing search engine and database management functions as well as other functions, a data store 44 of offerings in commercial paper and other short-term interests, and a trading system 46. The trading system 46 is shown in
The functionality provided by the BOOM system 40 (and the trading system 46), and the construction and configuration of the buyer terminals 20 and the dealer/issuer terminals 32, among other things, will determine the requirements and particular implementation of the interface 30. Where the BOOM system 40 is provided with functionality for interfacing with buyer terminals 20 and dealer/issuer terminals 32 for functions relating to identifying, searching, retrieving and trading the interests stored in data store 44, and/or where the BOOM system 40 is not providing additional optional services such as information (e.g., news services), a sophisticated interface such as the Bloomberg ProfessionalSM is not needed
Also, in the embodiment depicted in
The server 42 and the interface 30 cooperate to provide a GUI 48 (
For example, in the summary view screen 100 depicted in
To view the offerings of a particular trading party, that trading party's line number (shown generally at 110) is selected. For example, entering “1” and pressing a “<GO>” or enter key instructs the server 42 to end the display of the summary view screen 100 and invoke a detail presentation of “Merrill Lynch” offerings, e.g., present a detail view screen 200 (
Investment criteria entered by the buyer to selectively retrieve offerings information in CP and other short-term interests from the offerings data store 44 (
In one embodiment, the “1<GO>” command, for example, instructs the server 42 to present a search profile list, e.g., a drop-down box display 300 (
Within the arrangement of the plurality of fields, shown generally at 400 (
The GUI 400 also includes a plurality of command buttons 420 illustrated in
The search profile is applied to the offerings data store 44 by the server 42 in response to selection of either the “99) Search” or “98) Save and Search” buttons 422 and 424, respectively. Results of the search are presented to the buyer by the server 42 and interface 30 in a split screen format, illustrated by a results display screen 440 (
As illustrated in
The Search Options list 460 (
The BOOM system 40 also includes additional tools to assist buyers to interactively evaluate offerings currently listed within the offerings data store 44. Referring again to
As shown in
Enablement:
The BOOM system 40 (
A Dealer List field 90 is included in the GUI 60 of
Enablement to trade may be implemented in two stages. A first stage, described above, concerns enablement to view trading information so that a buyer may determine whether to trade any offering the buyer is authorized to view. A second stage concerns the ability to actually execute a trade. Even if a buyer can view offerings of a dealer, the dealer may prohibit the buyer from trading, i.e. “executing”, the offering. In other words, dealers may selectively enable buyers for viewing offerings with and without enablement for executing the offerings that the buyers can view. In one embodiment, the BOOM system 40 allows a dealer to “tag” its offerings within the offerings data store 44 with an execution parameter. The execution parameter has values that control whether an offering can be selected and traded by buyers automatically or only after approval by the dealer. Other execution parameter values are utilized to indicate that the specific terms of a CP transaction may be negotiated. In effect, the execution parameters allow dealers to control completion of transactions initiated by buyers.
In a negotiated transaction, dealers may allow terms of the transaction to vary. That is, in negotiated transactions a buyer may propose different terms, e.g., different price and/or yield terms when executing the transaction. At execution, the different terms (and preferably, the original terms) are transmitted by the trading system 46 to the appropriate dealer 32 listing the offering. After review by the dealer, the proposed terms may be accepted or rejected. If accepted, the transaction is completed. If rejected, the transaction is not completed. One execution parameter, referred to as an “auto-execution” parameter, provides for automatic completion of a trade when an offering is selected and executed by a buyer. The BOOM system 40 also includes a “dealer approval required” parameter, that requires review and approval by the dealer who issued a buyer selected and executed offering before the trade can be completed. Tagging offerings as “dealer approval required” provides dealers with a mechanism to review each trade before accepting it. It is within the scope of the present invention for other execution parameters to impose additional requirements on a buyer who has selected and executed an offering before the transaction is completed.
The BOOM system 40 also includes an Approved Issuers List (“AIL”) function implemented by the trading system 46. The AIL function, which is not strictly an enablement function, permits authorized individuals within a buyer's firm to specify a subset of dealers from which buyers can execute transactions. That is, even if a buyer is enabled to view and execute offerings of a particular dealer, the AIL function may be used to limit access, e.g., filter, to certain dealers and their offerings in accordance with criteria established by the buyer's firm. For example, CP and other short-term interests generally carry a short maturity. The credit quality of an dealer (more appropriately, the credit of an issuer) can deteriorate rapidly resulting in losses in principle. Since it is generally preferred to seek low risk as opposed to high yield transactions, the stability of a dealer's credit may be an important factor in a decision to trade short-term interests. Accordingly, a buyer's firm may employ substantial resources to monitor and analyze credit factors. To ensure that their buyers do not execute transactions that are contrary to the firm's credit analysis, pre-approved lists of credit worthy dealer/issuers are often maintained to guide buyers. The BOOM system 40 provides the AIL function as a mechanism for implementing the pre-approved lists within an electronic trading system.
Within the BOOM system 40, AILs are typically used within a search profile to filter out the offerings of dealers on the AIL. Accordingly, the GUI 60 (
Many, if not all, of the enablement and AIL functions described above as being implemented by the trading system 46 can be implemented by a server 42, or implementation can be shared by the trading system 46 and a server 42.
The interface 30, the server 42, the offerings data store 44 and the trading system 46 may be implemented with functionality and hardware generally known in the art, as adapted to perform the inventive functionality described herein.
While the invention has been described and illustrated in connection with preferred embodiments, many variations and modifications, as will be apparent to those of skill in the art, may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Also, the invention has been described by way of illustration rather than limitation. For example, the teachings of this invention are not intended to be limited to any specific type of trading system, and it should be appreciated that the features disclosed herein are not limited to application in a commercial paper trading system such as the preferred BOOM system of Bloomberg L.P.
Accordingly, the invention as set forth in the appended clams is not limited to the precise details of construction set forth above as such other variations and modifications as would be apparent to one skilled in the art are intended to be included within the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the defined claims.
Claims
1. A computer system useful for evaluating trading interests, comprising:
- a buyer terminal having an output device for presenting offerings of the interests and an input device for entering one or more investment criteria; and
- a computer coupled to the buyer terminal, a data store coupled to the computer including offerings of a plurality of trading parties, the computer including programming for selectively identifying from the data store offerings of the plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria, the computer providing information related to identified offerings responsive to the investment criteria of all trading parties for presentation together on the output device.
2. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the computer provides to the output device a presentation, in an integrated fashion, of information related to identified offerings of at least two of the plurality of trading parties.
3. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the computer provides to the output device a presentation of information related to identified offerings in a summary view, the summary view including a count of responsive offerings of each of the plurality of trading parties.
4. The computer system as set forth in claim 3, wherein responsive to a selection entered via said input device identifying a trading party presented in the summary view, the computer provides a listing of all offerings from the data store of the one selected trading party for presentation on the output device.
5. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the investment criteria includes buyer-defined values for terms of the offerings.
6. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the investment criteria includes buyer-defined values for at least one of maturity, size, yield, credit ratings and trading party of the offerings.
7. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the investment criteria includes parameters that specify an order for presenting offerings information retrieved from the data store.
8. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the computer system includes memory for storing the investment criteria, the computer upon command selectively identifying the offerings in the data store based on investment criteria stored in the memory.
9. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, where the computer comprises programming for selectively granting buyers authority to view offerings of the trading parties, and for selectively preventing retrieval and display of offerings to unauthorized buyers.
10. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the computer comprises programming for selectively granting buyers authority to execute offerings of dealers.
11. The computer system as set forth in claim 1, wherein the computer comprises programming for selectively limiting access to offerings of predetermined ones of the plurality of trading parties.
12. In a computer system for trading interests including a plurality of buyer terminals having an output device and an input device, and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals by a communication system, the improvement comprising a data store coupled to the central computer including offerings of a plurality of trading parties, the central computer including programming for selectively identifying from the data store offerings of a plurality of trading parties responsive to at least one investment criterion entered via an input device of a buyer terminal, the central computer transmitting to the buyer terminal for presentation on the output device the information related to identified offerings of each trading party having an offering responsive to the at least one investment criterion..
13. In a computer system for trading interests including a plurality of buyer terminals having an output device and an input device, and a central computer linked to the buyer terminal by a communication system, the improvement comprising a data store coupled to the central computer including offerings of a plurality of trading parties, the central computer including programming for selectively identifying from the data store offerings of a plurality of trading parties responsive to at least one investment criterion entered via an input device of a buyer terminal, the central computer transmitting to the buyer terminal for presentation on the output device the information related to identified offerings, including a count of identified offerings of each of trading party having an offering responsive to at least one said investment criterion.
14. A method for evaluating trading interests, comprising:
- entering at least one investment criterion into a computer system in which are stored trading interests of a plurality of parties;
- retrieving information relating to offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the at least one investment criterion; and
- presenting, in an integrated fashion, the retrieved offerings information of the plurality of trading parties.
15. The method as set forth in claim 14, comprising for each trading party for which offerings information was retrieved, presenting a count of the retrieved offerings.
16. The method as set forth in claim 14, comprising;
- sorting the retrieved offerings information in accordance with sorting information included within the investment criteria, wherein the step of presenting includes presenting the retrieved offerings information in the sorting information.
17. The method as set forth in claim 14, comprising storing entered investment criteria and upon request, retrieving the stored investment criteria and applying the retrieved investment criteria to again retrieve offerings of the plurality of dealers.
18. The method as set forth in claim 13, comprising a trading party granting authority to a buyer to view offerings information of the trading party and preventing retrieval and display of offerings information of the trading party to unauthorized buyers.
19. The method as set forth in claim 13, in combination with a method for trading offerings, comprising the step of a trading party granting authority to a buyer to execute offerings of that trading party.
20. The method as set forth in claim 13, comprising the step of a buyer limiting that buyer's access to offerings of predetermined ones of the plurality of trading parties.
21. A method for electronically evaluating offerings of interests, comprising:
- entering one or more investment criteria;
- identifying offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria on a party by party basis; and
- presenting information relating to identified offerings of each of the plurality of trading parties in an integrated fashion on a party by party basis.
22. A method for electronically evaluating interests, comprising:
- entering one or more investment criteria, the investment criteria including presentation preferences;
- identifying offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria; and
- presenting information related to identified offerings of each of the plurality of trading parties in an order responsive to the presentation preferences.
23. A method for electronically trading interests, comprising:
- entering one or more investment criteria;
- identifying offerings of the interests from a plurality of trading parties responsive to the investment criteria;
- presenting, in an integrated fashion, information related to identified offerings of the plurality of trading parties;
- selecting an offering for which information is presented; and
- completing a trading order for the selected offering.
24. In a computer system for trading short term interests including a plurality of buyer terminals, a plurality of dealer and/or issuer terminals and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals and the dealer and/or issuer terminals by a communications system, the improvement comprising memory accessible by the central computer in which is stored information of specific dealers or issuers authorizing presentation of offerings information of the specific dealer or issuer on a specific buyer terminal, the computer including programming which provides offerings information only to authorized buyer terminals.
25. In a computer system for trading short term interests including a plurality of buyer terminals, a plurality of dealer and/or issuer terminals and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals and the dealer and/or issuer terminals by a communications system, the improvement comprising memory accessible by the central computer in which is stored information of specific dealers or issuers authorizing presentation of offerings information of the specific dealer or issuer on a specific buyer terminal, and information of specific dealers or users authorizing the specific buyer terminal to execute a trade on an offering about which information is authorized to be presented on that buyer terminal, the computer including programming which provides offerings information only to authorized buyer terminals and which executes trades requested only by authorized buyer terminals.
26. In a computer system for trading short term interests including a plurality of buyer terminals, a plurality of dealer and/or issuer terminals and a central computer linked to the buyer terminals and the dealer and/or issuer terminals by a communications system, the improvement comprising memory accessible by the central computer in which is stored information of buyers authorizing presentation of offerings information of specific dealers or issuers on a respective buyer terminal, the computer including programming which provides offerings information only of authorized dealers or issuers to the respective buyer terminal.
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 12, 2001
Publication Date: Jan 20, 2005
Inventor: Susanne Vindekilde (Weston, CT)
Application Number: 09/760,196