Weekly Highlights

• Since the SP500 peaked on July 16th, few concentrations of names, if any, have been stronger or more consistent than utilities and real estate. Looking at the major ETFs as proxies, XLU returned over 7% and XLRE just under through last Friday. In terms of drawdowns, both have experienced less than half that of the major index proxies SPY and IWM at their worst points.

• Despite their recent strength in returns, and the fact these names were less dislocated than others during early August volatility from a trading cost perspective, they do pose some challenging characteristics for benchmark algos. For example, early day volumes as a percentage of total ADV are more muted for these names than the market as a whole, while spreads are relatively higher. Also, these groups have experienced a greater reversion in overall trading and continued lower trade sizes than other groups since early August. So, having your algos ride along with this new leadership may be trickier than first glance might suggest.

• Enter IntelligentCross and our performant liquidity solutions. In the over 235 most-traded names in these groups, we have over 230 thousand orders per day amounting to more than 6 million shares of liquidity displayed daily on our free market data feed, IQX, with prices better than the NBBO on arrival. Over 12% of this flow comes in the first half hour of trading, and over 24% in the first hour. Combine that with market leading post-trade markouts and quote stability and it's clear IntelligentCross should be a featured part of your execution solutions.

• If you haven't yet leveraged our platform to boost your trading outcomes, we encourage you to connect with us. Our displayed ASPEN quotes are available through our market data feed, IQX, which can be accessed directly or via providers such as Exegy, MayStreet, and ACTIV.