The release of its new pricing and analytics platform for FX swaps, Neo STIR Analytics, has transformed how UBS engages with clients trading in FX swaps.
The tool aims to provide transparency in the FX swap market by exposing the underlying components of a swap price, enabling clients to make more informed decisions and time their trades better.
The data provided by UBS is not easily accessible via other mainstream data providers, allowing clients to identify trends and better predict market events.
The bank’s analytics and product footprint has been further improved to add back-testing capabilities and event weight market data screens, which help clients narrow in on the derivative expression that best suits their objectives.
Built and used by UBS’s STIR (short-term interest rate) traders, this is a state-of-the-art analytics tool for FX swaps that breaks swap prices into components (FXOIS and OIS) and provides information on historical and current FX-OIS and x-currency levels.
“The rationale behind creating the tool is threefold,” explains James Regan, global co-head G10 and PM STIR trading. “Firstly, UBS STIR Analytics provides unique data that is not easily accessible via other mainstream market data providers. Secondly, the tool helps clients identify trends and predict price action of market events; and finally, since the data is updated by a global and centralised STIR desk, traders are marking the curve and updating data 24/5, which makes the data quality hard to match.”
Neo FX Options was constructed with one goal in mind: partnering with clients throughout the entirety of the FX options lifecycle.
“From pre-trade analytics, such as alerting on conditions, running scenario analysis and back-testing of strategies to fast and reliable execution of more than 350 FX and PM option payoffs, to post-trade optimization such as evolution scenarios, alerting on exit timing, and automated rollover suggestions, it enhances the user experience for all clients,” says Lu Xin, FX derivatives trading.
Earlier this year, UBS introduced a smart-entry system that aids the generation of FX option structures from text inputs.