< The 2015 Trading Technology 40: Going with the Flow

Despite its technological prowess, KCG Holdings hasn’t been immune to the declining trading volumes and low volatility that have challenged U.S. equity market makers. The Jersey City, New Jersey–based company — created by the July 2013 merger of high frequency trading pioneer Getco and executing brokerage Knight Capital Group — saw its third-quarter 2014 market-making revenue fall more than 30 percent year over year, to $166.6 million. The drop, however, was partly offset by growth in its algorithmic trading business. KCG added 50 new institutional clients during the quarter thanks to its Opportunistic algorithm, based on a Getco legacy product that incorporates “micro market structure signals from the proprietary trading side,” says chief technology officer Jonathan Ross. In November, KCG introduced Catch, a new algorithm designed to adapt to changing market dynamics and capture liquidity. “In its hunt for liquidity, the algo analyzes market data, tick by tick, to make very quick predictions for what it thinks the alpha is for the next second, half second or whatever it believes the appropriate amount of time is,” explains Ross, 46, a onetime video game programmer who was CTO of the Nasdaq Stock Market before joining Getco in 2007. He says KCG is expanding its presence in fixed-income markets, which includes its BondPoint corporate debt marketplace. “We’re extremely good at execution, and we don’t need balance sheet to do it,” adds Ross. “Firms that really care about execution are going to be looking to us more and more.”

See also Ross' profile in the 2013 Trading Technology 40.

 
The 2015 Trading Technology 40

1	2	3	4	5
Kevin Kometer CME Group	Richard Prager BlackRock	Raymond Tierney III Bloomberg Tradebook	Jonathan Ross KCG Holdings	Charles Vice Intercontinental Exchange
6	7 Zef Nikolla	8	9	10
Chris Isaacson BATS Global Markets	Bradley Peterson Nasdaq OMX Group	Brad Levy MarkitSERV	Dan Keegan Citi	Ronald DePoalo Fidelity Institutional
11 Mark McQueen	12	13	14	15 Margaret Fox
Gerard Beatty Goldman Sachs Group	Gerald O'Connell CBOE Holdings	Brenda Hoffman TMX Group	Billy Hult Tradeweb Markets	Nicholas Themelis MarketAxess Holdings
16	17	18 Martin H. Simon	19 Todd Plitt	20 A.E. Fletcher Photography
Bina Kalola Bank of America Merrill Lynch	Gil Mandelzis EBS-BrokerTec (ICAP)	Steven Randich Financial Industry Regulatory Authority	Jerry Dobner GFI Group	Michael Liberman BlueMountain Capital Management
21	22 Photographer:http://www.digitalh	23	24 Dennis Degnan	25 Paul Elledge
Bill Chow and Richard Leung Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing	Jamie Selway Investment Technology Group	Brad Katsuyama IEX Group	John Mackay (Mack) Gill MillenniumIT	Jamil Nazarali Citadel Execution Services
26	27	28 Picasa	29 Andrew Harrer	30 Takashi KATO
Robert Cornish International Securities Exchange	Tyler Moeller andJoshua Walksy Broadway Technology	Rishi Nangalia REDI Holdings	Manoj Narang Tradeworx, Thesys Technologies	Oki Matsumoto Monex Group
31	32 unknown	33 Douglas Kurn	34 Luludi/LUZ	35 William Neumann Photography
Alasdair Haynes Aquis Exchange	Veronica Augustsson Cinnober Financial Technology	Stu Taylor Algomi	Luís Otávio Saliba Furtado BM&FBovespa	Tal Cohen Chi-X Global Holdings
36	37	38	39	40
Donal Byrne Corvil	R. Cromwell Coulson OTC Markets Group	Alfred Eskandar Portware	Richard Korhammer SR Labs	Hazem Dawani OptionsCity Software