WO2013054133A2

WO2013054133A2 - Processing data in a computer implemented trading system

Info

Publication number: WO2013054133A2
Application number: PCT/GB2012/052539
Authority: WO
Inventors: Michael Read; Peter Read
Original assignee: London & Eastern Llp
Priority date: 2011-10-14
Filing date: 2012-10-12
Publication date: 2013-04-18
Also published as: GB2496101A; GB201117787D0; WO2013054133A3

Abstract

A system of selectively disseminating information relating to executed trades among users of a computer implemented trading system, the system comprises one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms and a host computing system comprising one or more computers implementing the dissemination of information. The users include tracking users tracking the executed trades of one or more other users and tracked users permitting tracking of their executed trades and usually users doing both. The host computing system is configured to: receive requests to become tracked users of the system; in response to each request, send to the requestor an invitation for the requestor to select conditions according to which the requestor permits tracking of its executed trades; receive the selection of conditions at the host computing system; record the selection together with data identifying the requestor in memory associated with the host computing system whereby the requestor becomes a tracked user of the trading system; receive executed trade data identifying trades executed for at least tracked users; filter the executed trade data according to the conditions selected by the tracked users; receive tracking requests each for a tracking user to track in real time the executed trades of a selected tracked user by one or both of i) receiving notifications that the selected tracked user has executed a trade and ii) automatically executing a trade based on a trade made by the selected user; and comply with the tracking requests subject to the conditions preselected by the tracked user.

Description

PROCESSING DATA IN A COMPUTER IMPLEMENTED TRADING SYSTEM

The present invention relates to the processing data relating to executed trades in a computer implemented trading system. It is particularly intended for trades conducted through execution- only trading platforms. These are computer hosted trading platforms operated by organizations licensed by an authority in the relevant jurisdiction to offer certain financial products to individuals. No advice is given to individuals in connection with trading decisions. The invention will be described in the following with particular reference to execution only trading but it has applications in other trading areas.

An individual may become particularly successful at execution only trading such that there would be benefits to other users being able to monitor his or her trading activities.

There is provided in one aspect a method of processing data in a computer implemented trading system. The system comprises one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms, a host computing system comprising one or more computers processing executed trade data, and one or more client computing devices communicating with the host computing system. The method is carried out at the host computing system and comprises:

receiving, in real time, from the one or more computers implementing the one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

filtering from the executed trade data a selection of the executed trades;

preparing an instruction to execute a trade corresponding to at least each of the selected trades; and for each instruction either

sending the instruction to the one or more computers implementing the trading platform at which the corresponding trade was executed or

sending the instruction to a client computing device.

In another aspect the method comprises receiving from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more selected traders trading using the one or more trading platforms; receiving in real time, from the one or more computers implementing the one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

sending to one or more computing devices of a requesting client notifications of the trades of the one or more selected traders immediately upon receipt of executed trade data relating to the one or more selected traders, the notification including details of the executed trade.

Brief Description of the Drawings

An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating information flows in a computer implemented trading system;

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating payment flows into and out of the information hub shown in figure 1 ; and

Figure 3 is a flow chart showing the steps carried out in providing trade notification data to individuals after multiple users have been registered with the system.

Figure 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating the hardware components of a complete trading system including multiple trading platforms, multiple users and a computer implementing a system for dissemination of trading information amongst traders; and

Figure 5 is a diagram illustrating the parameters available to users when tracking the trading activities of others. This is a system for processing data in a computer implemented trading system.. An overview is provided first with more detailed information following with the discussion of the accompanying figures. Broadly, the system receives raw data in real time from one or more trading platforms and then processes it to provide either instructions or notifications. The data belongs to the trading platforms and is supplied with their permission. Once obtained, subject to any restrictions imposed by the supplier, it can be processed unhindered. Thus it can be used to identify successful traders and copy their trading decisions. In principle the permission of the traders whose decisions are being copied is not required. However there are benefits on both sides to the traders giving their permission. The traders might be paid for their expertise and they could be charged a membership fee to permit their data to be made available to others. The following system is based on the traders giving permission for data relating to their trades to be shared but it will be understood from the above that this is not essential.

The system may be implemented on apparatus comprising one or more computers with suitable data processing capability and configured to perform the following functions:

• receiving user registration data - this will include data for at least some users who are willing to share data relating to at least some of their trading activities with other users (tracked users) and at least some other users wishing to receive such data (tracking users)

• receiving executed trade data from one or more trading platforms identifying trades executed for registered users

• filtering the executed trade data and

• providing executed trade data to tracking users according to preset conditions selected by tracking and tracked users. At the time of registration, users will have the opportunity to determine what information they wish to share relating to their own trading activities and what information they wish to receive. A typical novice trader will be more interested in receiving data relating to the activities of others. Such a trader might be interested only in certain kinds of trade, such as foreign currency exchange. A more experienced or confident trader might indicate on initial registration a willingness to share his executed trade data. Users will typically opt for a combination of sharing and receiving information and will be able to update their requirements from time to time.

Broadly speaking shared information can be used in two ways. Firstly it is used to determine the relative performance of traders and secondly it can be used to enable another user to track the trades of a successful user identified from the relative performance. Thus there are at least two levels of sharing and users could opt in or out of both in one or more types of trade.

It will become clear from the following that for the successful operation of the system users should not have complete freedom in determining what information they are willing to share. For example a user cannot opt to share data relating to his profitable trades only. The parameters available for users to select are described in more detail in the following.

The trades themselves are executed through use of a trading platform typically implemented on apparatus located remote from where the processing of trade data, to be described below, is based. In this situation a user instructs the platform operator to execute a trade on his behalf. It is for this reason that the foregoing refers to trades executed "for" users. The apparatus implementing the processing of trade data may communicate with the apparatus hosting the trading platform over the internet or other communication network and this is how the executed trade data is received.

Preferably the operator of the system has an arrangement with the trading platform to receive all of its executed trade data or all executed trade data for users registered with the system. The former may be preferable for the trading platform since it does not itself have to select data to be sent to the system operator. The executed trade data is then filtered within the present system according to the requirements of users before being sent to users. Thus, for example, user John may be willing to share his spread betting and foreign currency trade data. This is then filtered out from data identifying any other executed trades for John. User Ben may be interested only in the spread betting activities of John and therefore John's currency exchange information is filtered out from information provided to Ben.

Importantly the system may receive data relating to executed trades from multiple trading platforms, possibly in multiple locations. Then users who trade using multiple platforms are able to share with other users information relating to all of their trading activities on all of the platforms.

The received data relating to executed trades may be compiled to provide performance tables or other comparative information indicating the success rate of one user relative to another. Success may be measured in terms of percentage profit over a given period for example. It will be appreciated that such comparative information will only take account of data that a user is willing to share with others. Thus a user is able to compare his own performance with that of others. If he finds himself to be relatively successful in gold trading for example he might be motivated to share data relating to other trading activities that he is carrying out. Preferably the comparative information does not include actual amounts of money traded so as to level out any competition between those with different fund sizes. From the comparative information a user will be able to identify the most successful other users in certain types of trade.

The received data relating to executed trades may be relayed back to the user that instructed the execution of the trade. Thus while the user may receive such information direct from the trading platform it may also be provided via the system described herein. The system may provide a user with an overall analysis of all of his trading activities, which is particularly useful if he is trading using multiple platforms. A user may then be able to compare his performance with that of other traders who are sharing their trade data before deciding whether to share his own trade data publicly. In the preferred system users have the option to share their executed trade data either with all or with none of the other registered users of the system. Alternatively users might be able to share data with a group of other users who meet certain criteria. In that situation a new user registered with the system will be included in the sharing of executed trade information relating to an existing user without the express permission of the existing user provided that the new user meets the criteria. Importantly the system does not enable direct engagement or communication between users. The significance of this will become clear from the following.

The system permits one user to "track" the trading activities of one or more others. A user receiving information relating to executed trades by others will be able to determine from the comparative information the success of one or more traders relative to others. A user might then decide to copy the trading decisions of another user. The system provides a user with the option to receive "trade notifications" relating to the trading activities of another user, subject to permission of the other user. In the preferred system a user has the capability to track automatically the trading decisions of one or more other users. In this situation, instead of a user manually instructing a trading platform to copy a trading decision of another user, a trade execution instruction is sent by the system to the platform automatically on behalf of the user. An individual user whose activities are tracked either manually or automatically or semi- automatically (see below) may levy a fee to enable this to occur. For reasons to be described below this fee is handled through the system rather than any direct arrangement between users. A user, having decided to track automatically the trades of another user, will set certain criteria for his own trading activities relative to those of the automatically tracked user or users. For example the tracking user may have a smaller total fund than the automatically tracked user. Therefore trading decisions might be made automatically based on a percentage of the tracking user's fund size rather than actual amounts.

A user might decide to track automatically only certain types of trade by another user. For example Ben might decide only to track automatically the spread betting activities of John. He might additionally decide to manually track John's currency exchange trades. Importantly a user can track multiple other users either automatically or manually and therefore has wide flexibility in terms of numbers of other users and types of trades to track automatically. Because data is centralised as will become apparent from the following, users can select specific packages of data to manually track or automatically track. For example a user may be able to pool different products being traded by different accounts (e.g. multiple auto tracking accounts and manual tracking accounts) into one central trading account. This is clearly more flexible than for example simply copying a lead account pound for pound.

The system to be described below can be considered to be a method of operating an investment trust in the sense that multiple traders can be tracked on behalf of multiple clients. Each client may contribute a sum of money which will determine how much he can profit/lose from the operation of the system. Each client can select his own combination of traders and products traded.

On initial registration an account is set up for a user. This will contain an initial amount of money, or fund, that the user wishes to use in trading. The management of the fund will be described in more detail below. A user wishing to automatically track the trading activities of another may have a separate account for each other user that is to be automatically tracked with a separate fund in each. Alternatively all of the automatic trading activities of a user may be handled from the same account or fund according to certain rules that the user is invited to set in advance, determining how funds are to be allocated between automatically tracked traders and types of trade. A user wishing to perform automatic tracking and manual tracking will usually have a separate account for manual tracking.

It will be appreciated from the foregoing that the system is particularly suited to "execution only" trades. In execution only trading, a broker, or in this case a trading platform, will only carry out a client's or user's instructions to buy or sell and does not advise on the transaction. Execution only trading is therefore well suited to automated systems. A number of execution- only trading platforms are operational in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. These are operated by organizations licensed to offer certain financial products to individuals. These organizations monitor prices of products, provide live feeds on prices and execute trades on behalf of users. It should be noted that different trading platforms can offer the same financial products to users. Thus a system as described in the following may be handling data relating to the same financial products such as FTSE 100 trades, from different trading platforms.

In the United Kingdom, execution-only traders must trade their own money. They cannot manage funds on behalf of others. It follows that if they become successful at trading they cannot advise others without the permission of the Financial Services Authority. Similar legislation exists in other jurisdictions.

An individual who is not registered with the FSA or other similar body can charge a fee for his trading activities to be tracked provided that this is done through the intermediary of an organization that is regulated by the FSA. Thus an organization processing trading information in the manner described above can handle payments on behalf of users wishing to charge for tracking of their activities provided that the organisation meets the strict requirements of the FSA or similar body in other jurisdictions. The funds will not usually be held by the organization itself. Rather they will be banked with another organization on behalf of the operator and the operator will allocate amounts to clients.

It is important to note that an individual user does not receive a specific tracking request. The user sets the conditions under which he or she will permit his or her trades to be tracked without any prior knowledge of who might be doing the tracking. In this way the system is fully automated and provides an intermediary between those wishing to track the trades of others and those willing for data relating to their trades to be tracked. A user will predetermine conditions according to which his or her trade data is to be tracked (e.g. conditional on fee payment, restriction to certain types of trade) but in the preferred implementation the user is not able to specify which users are able to track data. Thus, in the preferred implementation, conditions selected by one user according to which his trade data may be shared will therefore apply to all other users. Any other user prepared to meet the conditions specified by the user to be tracked will be permitted to track that user. It will therefore be understood that there is provided in one aspect a method of processing data in a computer implemented trading system, the system comprising one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms, a host computing system comprising one or more computers processing executed trade data, and one or more client computing devices communicating with the host computing system, the method being carried out at the host computing system and comprising:

filtering from the executed trade data a selection of the executed trades;

sending the instruction to a client computing device.

The preparation of the instructions to trade may be carried out before the filtering and comprises preparing an instruction to trade corresponding to all of the executed trades for which data is received. In that case it is the instructions that are filtered.

If the instruction to trade is sent to the trading platform it will be acted on at the trading platform. If the instruction to trade is sent to the client computing device the client can decide whether to send it to a trading platform to be executed. The filtering of the executed trade data may perform any combination of the following functions: selecting of trades by certain traders,

selecting of type of trade,

limiting exposure for available funds,

limiting points loss for individual trades,

specifying maximum amount to be traded,

specifying minimum amount to be traded, and applying price execution controls.

The client will usually determine how trades are to be filtered according to its requirements. Thus in one embodiment the method comprises receiving trading parameters from one or more client computing devices and filtering the executed trade data according to the received trading parameters.

It follows from the foregoing that the trading parameters may include any combination of the following:

selection of one or more traders,

selection of type of trade,

limit on exposure for available funds,

limit on points loss for individual trades,

maximum amount to be traded,

minimum amount to be traded, and

price execution controls.

As well as (or instead of) wishing to follow the trades of certain traders, a client may simply require to be notified of the trading decisions of a trader and then make his own determination as to whether to follow the trade. Therefore the method may also comprise receiving from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more traders and in response to the request sending to one or more computing devices of the requesting client notifications of the trades of the one or more selected traders immediately upon receipt of executed trade data relating to the one or more selected traders.

Some such notifications may be sent with an instruction to execute a trade. Thus a client could automatically track the trades of some traders and manually track the trades of another trader.

A client could operate completely manually and thus there is also provided a method of processing data in a computer implemented trading system, the system comprising one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms, a host computing system comprising one or more computers processing executed trade data and multiple client computing devices communicating with the host computing system, the method being carried out at the host computing system and comprising:

receiving from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more selected traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

receiving in real time, from the one or more computers implementing the one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

Any of the notifications referred to above may include an indication of whether the trade is a buy or sell trade

If a notification relates to an opening trade it includes any combination of information selected from

Name of account

Fund name being tracked

Name of product traded

Entry price

Direction

Stop loss

Profit limit

Trader conviction weighting

Past performance in product

Number of times user has traded that product.

If a notification relates to a closing or part closing trade it may include any combination of information selected from

Name of account Fund name being tracked

Name of product traded

Exit price

Performance.

A notification sent to a client computing device for manual tracking only may include an instruction to execute a trade. The client then has the option to forward the instruction to a trading platform. The instruction may comprise a link to a trading platform for execution of a trade according to the specimen instruction.

Another aspect of the systems described above relates to providing clients with information to assist them in determining which trader or traders to follow and whether to select particular products. Thus any of the methods described above may comprise analysing the received data relating to the executed trades and making the results of the analysis available to client computing devices. The analysing may comprise comparing the relative performance of the traders. The performance may be determined in a manner that is irrespective of actual amount traded. The analysis may comprise calculating for each executed trade a measure of conviction of the trader. This may be based for example on the size of the trade relative to other trades by the same trader.

As noted above it is not necessary to have the permission of a trader to track his or her trading activities. However it may in some circumstances be desirable to do so and therefore any of the methods described above may comprise receiving from trader computing devices permission to follow the trades of the trader by executing corresponding trades and/or providing notifications corresponding to the trades of the trader, and filtering the executed trade data and/or preparing notifications to include only trades by traders from whom permission has been received. The permission may be restricted to one or more types of trade and the method then comprises filtering the executed trade data and/or preparing notifications to include only those types of trade. The permission may be restricted to one or more products traded and the method comprises filtering the executed trade data and/or preparing notifications to include only those products. Traders giving permission for their trades to be followed may be compensated for this. Therefore the method may comprise processing payments to one or more traders permitting following the trades of the trader. Payments may be calculated as a percentage of positive trades.

There is also provided in one aspect a computing system comprising one or more computers comprising one or more processors configured to:

receive, in real time, from one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms; filter from the executed trade data a selection of the executed trades;

prepare an instruction to execute a trade corresponding to at least each of the selected trades; and for each instruction either

send the instruction to the one or more computers implementing the trading platform at which the corresponding trade was executed or

send the instruction to a client computing device.

There is also provided in one aspect a computing system comprising one or more computers comprising one or more processors configured to

receive from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more selected traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

receive in real time, from one or more computers implementing the one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

send to one or more computing devices of a requesting client notifications of the trades of the one or more selected traders immediately upon receipt of executed trade data relating to the one or more selected traders, the notification including details of the executed trade.

There is also provided a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer readable instructions which when implemented on one or more processors in a computing system cause the system to operate according to any of the foregoing methods. The figures will now be described in detail. In the following, "system" is used to describe a method usually but not necessarily implemented in computer software operating on one or more computers as will be described in more detail below. "Tracking" refers to the act of monitoring, for example the trading activities of another user. A "user" is usually an individual but may be an organization. Users may also be known as traders or investors or in certain instances clients. Investors in execution only trades are sometimes referred to as "retail investors". "His" or "her" should be taken to mean "his or her" in every instance. "Account" defines a repository for capital for a user. Thus in common parlance users are sometimes referred to as "accounts" because they have accounts operated as part of the system. Currencies in the following are expressed in pounds sterling but it will be appreciated that other currencies can be traded in other jurisdictions. The sending or receiving of data in "real time" refers to data being sent and/or received immediately in response to an event, such as the execution of a trade, rather than for example in batch form at regular intervals.

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of information flows in a trading system including a system for the processing of trade information as described above. The boxes in figure 1 can be considered to represent software modules implemented in a computing system of the kind shown in figure 1. For the purpose of the following description, users of the system, or traders, may be categorized as "tracked" or "tracking" depending on whether their trades are being tracked by one or more others or they are tracking the trades of one or more others. However in a practical situation, users may track the trading activities of some other traders whilst at the same time being tracked themselves. For example a trader may track the gold trades of another trader whilst permitting others to track his share trades. This might occur because that user has been successful in share trading and wishes to charge a fee for his share trades to be tracked or followed. However the same user might be less confident in gold trading and wish to learn from another trader by tracking that trader's executed trades. In figure 1, item 100 designates an information hub. Here information relating to executed trades is received, filtered and processed, not necessarily in that order. Item 101 represents software implemented on a user's computer hereinafter referred to simply as the "user". It will be appreciated that many users may be registered with the information hub 100 and only one is indicated in figure 1 for the purpose of this explanation. All users are registered with the information hub 100 which includes memory storing their registration data and data relating to their trades. Thus to become users of the system, prospective traders and other interested parties register their details with the information hub. As well as providing contact details, user name and password, and any other security data, the nature of which will be familiar to those skilled in the art of financial trading systems, users will also be able to determine what information they wish to obtain from the system and the extent to which they permit data relating to their own trading activities to be available to others. Thus, information is supplied from each user 101 to information hub 100. This will include initial registration information. Users will be able to update their information as their requirements change. More details on the conditions from which users are able to select are provided below. Information required to register an account will usually include mandatory and optional information. Examples of such information are given below. These are not intended to be limiting on the kinds of information that a user may input and in practical implementations of the invention more or less information may be required and/or available for a user to choose or input.

Mandatory

1. Name (first and second in separate boxes)

2. Title

3. Age

4. Sex

5. Country of origin

6. Select new password

Optional profile data that can be edited at any time includes:

1. Insert photo

2. Occupation 3. Name of employee/Company name

4. Occupational sector

5. Position held

6. Is the user FSA authorised

7. Insert personal financial markets experience

8. Selecting a fund name for the users account

9. Describe fund strategy

10. Insert fund logo

11. Select URL for external user access

12. Determine extent to which trade data to be shared publicly, e.g. by type of trade.

13. Choose participation settings

The participation settings may comprise for example:

1. Global performance tables (these might be available to all visitors to a website association with the information hub) [Y/N - default Y]

2. Network performance tables (these would be available to registered users only) [Y/N - default

Y]

3. Your positive trades posted on your network wall (part of personal profile) [Y/N - default Y]

4. External public persona (this includes a blog and is not restricted to users) [Y/N - default Y]

Users will pay to receive or share data through the information hub 100 and therefore an account is established for each user. Subscriptions will be handled through the account as well as payments and receipts for executed trades.

It will be appreciated that the operator of the information hub 100 will usually have to perform certain checks on persons before accepting them as users of the system, for example to comply with legislation applicable to the jurisdiction in which it is operating. User 101 has access to a trading platform 106 via an application programming interface "API" 105 or other suitable means whereby user 101 can instruct the execution of a trade at the platform 106. The trade may take the form of a spread bet, foreign currency exchange, share deal, or contract for difference "CFD" or other trade. In response to an instruction from user 101 a trade is executed at the platform 106. In order to be a user of the trading platform 106 and information hub 100, a user requires no trading permissions such as would be required to trade on the stock exchange for example. However as noted above, through the system described here a user can be paid to allow others to track his activities. Such a user can therefore be classified as a non-client facing analyst.

According to UK regulations the operator of the trading platform 106 requires permission to deal in investments as an agent and to deal in investments as a principal. Similar regulations apply in other jurisdictions .

An agreement is established between the operator of the trading platform and the operator of the information hub whereby the platform 106 will pass to the information hub 100 at least details of all trades made by registered users of the information hub or preferably details of all trades to save the trading platform operator having to filter the data. Thus the information hub receives a data dump from the trading platform 106, and possibly other trading platforms.

The interface between the information exchange 100 and the platform 106 is in the form of an API which may be visualized as a data API 108 and an instruction API 110. Data relating to executed trades is passed from the platform 106 to the information hub 100 via the data API 108.

Thus the data API 108 will receive trade data from executed trades (both opening and closing) typically including the following:

[Name of product], [Account ID], [Type of trade] 'To open', [Pip size]

[Unique trade reference code], [Entry price], [Stake size], [Trade started timestamp], [Direction] 'buy/sell' , [Stop loss], [Profit limit], [Expiry date], [Trade exit price], [Trade performance] (profit or loss), [Trade closing timestamp] To comply with UK legislation and to be able to operate as described herein, ideally the operator of the information hub 100 has permission to:

• Advise on investment

• Arrange deals in investments

• Deal in investments as agent

• Make arrangements with a view to transactions in investments

• Make investments

• Manage investments

On receipt of data relating to executed trades for a particular user, the user's personal account with the operator is updated. This is particularly useful for a user who trades on multiple platforms. The user can then have available up to date information from the information hub synchronized with the trading platform data so as to know the state of his account, preferably in real time. Thus it is preferred that the data relating to executed trades is relayed to the information hub in real time, rather than for example in batch form.

As discussed in the foregoing, the operator of the information hub 100 prepares comparative information from the trade data received from the platform 106 (subject to permission from users). The preparation of this comparative information is discussed in more detail with reference to figure 4.

Information received at the information hub 100 is used to prepare trade notifications relating to the executed trades of individual users whose trades are being tracked by other users. These trade notifications are provided in real time.

When deciding to track the activities of another user, a tracking user has a number of options that may generally be categorized as:

• Automatic Tracking

• Semi-automatic Tracking • Manual Tracking.

Manual tracking involves tracking users being sent trade notifications as soon as trades are executed for the tracked user or shortly thereafter. The tracking user can then decide whether to follow a particular trading decision by the tracked trader. If the tracking user decides to follow the tracked user, the tracking user has to instruct the execution of a following trade, for example by direct communication with the trading platform 106. The trade notifications can be sent to a message facility at the information hub 100 in which case the user will have to log on to receive them. Alternatively they can be sent by text (e.g. SMS) or email or other electronic messaging arrangement. Alternatively a user can receive a notification by text , email, voicemail or other electronic messaging arrangement to log onto the hub 100 to view a trade notification.

At the other extreme a tracking user can set up an automatic tracking arrangement with the information hub whereby the trading decisions of the tracked trader are followed automatically without any input by the tracking user. This will be explained in more detail below.

For semi-automatic tracking, a user can be sent a trade notification as well as a pre-prepared instruction to the trading platform to make a following trade so that the user has to do no more than press "send" to execute a following trade. It will be appreciated that other forms of tracking between fully automatic and fully manual are possible.

The information included in a trade notification will be described in more detail below.

A trade notification is indicated by box 112 in figure 1. This is sent to users of manual and semi- automated tracking as indicated by box 104 in figure 1.

To operate automatic tracking, the information hub 100 automatically sends an instruction via the instruction API 110 to the trading platform 106 to execute a trade. To facilitate automatic tracking, the operator of the information hub sets up an automatic tracking account for each individual, one of which is indicated by reference 102. An instruction to execute a trade for an automatic tracking user is prepared by the instruction API according to instructions provided by the user on setting up the automatic tracking account. Thus the API will receive a basic automatic instruction to trade and apply certain filters either by default or as selected by a user in setting up the automatic tracking account. Such filters may:

Limit exposure for funds on account

Limit points loss for individual trades

• Specify Minimum/Maximum stake size

• Apply Price execution controls

Thus the number of instructions to trade sent via the instruction API to the trading platform 106 is likely to be less than the number of instructions to trade generated automatically in response to a tracked user having executed a trade. The filter options are described in more detail as follows:

Limit exposure for funds on account - If total cash on account falls by [a set percentage] close all open positions and stop tracking. Limit points loss for individual trades - Definable maximum points exposure by product i.e. copy lead trader but if loss exceeds [insert points] terminate position.

Specify Minimum/Maximum stake size - Min £[x] per point - Max £[x] per point per individual trade.

Apply Price execution controls - If opening execution price is more than [insert number of points] from tracked trader's entry price then do not execute trade. [Default should be no more The payment flows handled by the system, and what the payments are for, will now be described with reference to figure 2. The information hub 100 of figure 1 is operated by or on behalf of an investment trust indicated by reference 200. For the purpose of explanation figure 2 shows four users, otherwise known as traders or retail investors, 201, 202, 203 and 204. User 202 is manually tracking user 201 and user 204 is manually tracking user 203.

Boxes 205, 206, 207, 208 and 209 represent payments.

The investment trust receives payments 207 from user 202 on a monthly or annual basis for manual tracking data relating to user 201. In return for such payment the investment trust supplies trade notifications to user 202 based on trades by user 201 as indicated by the diagonal line linking box 200 and box 202.

The investment trust also receives payments 208 from user 204. This may be based on a percentage of all positive performing trades instructed from user 203. In return the investment trust provides an auto-tracking service for user 204 as indicated by the diagonal line linking user 204 to investment trust 200.

The investment trust pays user 201 for trade data bought by user 202. This could be based on a percentage of the manual tracking fee paid by user 202. In return user 201 provides trade data as indicated by the diagonal line joining user 201 to investment trust 200.

The investment trust pays user 203 for trade data bought by user 204. This might be a percentage of profit from all auto-tracked positive trades instructed from user 203. In return user 203 provides trade data as indicated by the diagonal line linking user 203 to investment trust 200.

The investment trust pays a fee 209 to the operator 210 of the trading platform for the supply of data. This might be based on a percentage of all tracking fees received from users for the supply of data. It will be clear from the foregoing that the investment trust provides trade information in exchange for payments and hence it might be referred to as an information hub.

Figure 3 illustrates how data received from a trading platform is transformed at the information hub 100 of figure 1 into information useful to users.

In step 301 a user, e.g. a retail investor, executes a trade. At step 302 the trade is executed by the execution-only trading platform and the data relating to the executed trade is sent to the information hub operated for example by the investment trust.

The form in which trade data is received was described briefly in connection with figure 1 and is now discussed in more detail. The trade data is sent to the investment trust as raw data from the execution only trading platform. Examples of the form by which the data is received is listed below. For opening trades:

[Name of product]

[Account ID]

[Type of trade] 'To open'

[Pip size]

[Unique trade reference code]

[Entry price]

[Stake size]

[Trade started timestamp]

[Direction] 'buy/sell'

[Stop loss]

[Profit limit] (if applicable)

[Expiry date] (If applicable)

For closing trades:

[Name of the product] [Account ID]

[Type of trade] 'To close'

[Pip size]

[Unique trade reference code] (to guarantee matching of opening and closing trades)

[Trade exit price]

[Trade performance] (profit or loss)

[Trade closing timestamp]

It will be appreciated that in order to determine whether a user has made a profit or loss on a particular trade, it is necessary to match opening and closing trades. Thus, for example, if a user buys gold, it will be necessary to match the purchase to the subsequent sale in order to determine whether the user has made a profit or loss on the overall trade. This matching may be done at the trading platform but in the preferred system it is done at the information hub 100 or computer processing apparatus associated with and operated by the same operator as the information hub. It will be appreciated that trades may not match exactly if a user sells only a proportion of what was bought. Matching in such situations is well known in the art and will not be described in detail. Suffice to say that in that case a profit or loss can be determined in a proportional basis.

At step 303 data relating to multiple executed trades is transformed into information useful to a user. Steps 304, 305 and 306 refer to three different ways in which data is transformed for the benefit of users. These are not intended to be limiting on the ways in which trade data can be presented to users.

At step 305 data is converted into performance metrics which allow users to measure both their own and other users' performance. Metrics gauge performance whilst avoiding exposing the actual cash performance of the trade. Thus those with less cash (or other capital) to invest are compared on an equal footing with those who have more cash. Below details these metrics:

The first metric is points performance.

Points performance = movement in price of a product between purchasing the product and selling the product measured in pips, where a pip is the smallest price change a given product can make. For most products, a pip is equivalent to 1/100 of one per cent, or one basis point. However for certain products a pip may be equivalent to several basis points.

In this manner the gain or loss in the underlying movement of the trade is tracked irrespective of how large or small the cash value traded was. For example a trade that bought the FTSEIOO at 5100 pips and sold it at 5200 pips would record a gain of 100 pips irrespective of whether the user invested £1 or £100 in FTSEIOO.

An algorithm for preparing a more informative performance metric starts all traders at £10,000 and trades are then processed in accordance with their points performance as well as a weighting (size of trade) to be explained.

This more informative performance metric is designed to provide users with a better understanding of performance by monitoring their trade impact on a hypothetical £10,000 fund. The following equation allows the system to measure performance whilst also making allowance for the trader's conviction behind the trade.

The hypothetical £10,000 metric is calculated as:

Points performance of completed trade (pips as with above) x weighting (relative size of trade to gauge conviction see below) x 10 (10 represents the maximum stake size)

In order to gauge the conviction behind the size of trade without disclosing the exact cash sum, the system calculates a weighting. Weighting converts cash sizes into percentage terms, 100% being the largest trade based on previous trade records. The equation to calculate weighting is as follows:

If the first trade then weighting equals 50%, if the largest trade or equal to largest trade then 100%), otherwise each new trade is weighted, for example assuming that the average trade size is 50%. The performance metrics may be presented to users in any number of ways and preferably users are provided with interfaces, via the API 105, enabling them to select how the data is presented to them. Thus users can view charts in which other users (and possibly themselves) are compared by various parameters. The range of possibilities includes graphs and league tables to name a few. A user may be able to request an aggregation of the positions taken by all other users (who have given permission) at a particular time. For example a user might want to know how many other traders have bought gold at a particular time. The trade data may also be transformed into a trading profile for an individual user. Individual users of the information are preferably able to set their own profile, in a manner similar to those used in social networking, that constrains how their own trading information may be presented to another user. Thus in step 306 trade data is transformed into profiles for specific users according to the constraints they have selected on initial registration.

A user may wish, before deciding whether to track a particular other user, to test how profitable an automatic tracking account would be if based on that other user. Thus a user is able to create a "test pen" following the trades of a particular user to test whether it would be profitable to track the trades of that user. The prospective tracking user is able to set the same filters as those available for a "live" automatic tracking account, including the default option. This is indicated at step 304.

From the transformed raw trade data a user is able to select a user to track either manually or automatically as indicated at step 307. For manual tracking, trade notifications are prepared as indicated at step 308. As noted above, provision of trade notification data is the relaying in real time of information sourced via the API 108 trading data (figure 1), sourced from the account of a particular user. Trade notification data allows the tracking user to know what the lead account user has traded, which direction they have traded, their size of trade relative to previous trades and the user's historic track record with that trade. This information allows any tracking user to make an informed decision on whether they should copy the lead account user. Information contained on trade notifications may include some or all of the following: For opening trades:

Name of account and fund name being tracked

Name of product traded

Entry price

Direction (long - Up, short - down)

Stop loss (if data provided - exit level and points away)

Profit limit (if data provided - exit level and points away)

Name of platform used to trade

Weighting (for algorithm see above)

Past performance in product (% of profitable trades) [=Profitable trades in product/Total number of trades in product]

Number of times user has traded that product (opening trades)

Link to user's trading platform (if multiple then set to default).

For closing trades or part closing trades:

'Closing trade' or 'Part closing trade'

Name of account and fund name being tracked

Name of product traded

Exit price

Name of platform used to trade

Performance in Points (+ or -)

Link to users trading platform (if multiple then set to default)

If a user has selected auto tracking at step 307, the method proceeds to step 309 where auto tracking trade proposals are prepared simply on the basis of the tracked account. These are then filtered as described above in step 312 and passed as execution instructions to the trading platform and included in the data passed from the platform to the investment trust in step 302. Figure 4 is a diagram illustrating one example of hardware that may be used to implement a system as described above. User equipment is shown on the left and server-side equipment is shown on the right. In this example the information hub 100 of figure 1 is hosted by a server 400 in the form of a general purpose computer running suitable software. Similarly multiple trading platforms, of which three are illustrated, are hosted by respective servers 401, 402 and 403. Communications between the trading platform servers 401, 402 and 403 and the information hub server 400 are effected through respective virtual private network (VPN) tunnels 404, 405, 406. It will be appreciated that these use primarily public telecommunication infrastructure, such as the internet, but they typically (and specifically in this case) require users to be authenticated, and secure data with encryption technologies to prevent disclosure of private information to unauthorized parties. Thus these communications links are shown as outside the internet although they may in fact use the internet.

On the client side, a client may communicate with any of the servers 400, 401, 402 and 403 via the internet 450 via any mobile communication device such as a smart phone 420, or laptop personal computer (pc) 421 or tablet device such as tablet pc or other touch screen device, or a fixed device such as desktop pc 422. Preferably the client side or user devices will be provided with specific downloadable applications enabling them to communicate more efficiently with the respective servers. Different applications may be required for different devices.

Figure 5 illustrates the options available to a user when setting up auto tracking of another user. Auto tracking filters provide the tracking user the functionality to set parameters by which his or her auto tracking account behaves in relation to an account or other user being tracked. The user of the leader or "tracked" account will send an instruction to a trading platform to execute a trade. This will be reported by the trading platform to the information hub, indicated by reference 501 in figure 5. The information hub will then generate a trade notification (according to the permission of the lead account holder) and from this trade notification an instruction is automatically generated which mirrors the trade instructed by the lead account holder. The information hub may by default generate an instruction in response to each trade reported to it from the trading platform. In that case the instructions need to be restricted to those applicable to tracked accounts. Furthermore the user of the following or tracking account may choose in advance not to execute all such automatically generated instructions. Thus such instructions, indicated by arrow 502, pass through a number of filters indicated generally by reference numeral 503. It will be appreciated that for a user tracking multiple other users such instructions will originate from multiple other users.

As will be explained in more detail below, controls on the filters 503 can be determined by the tracked account user 504, the amount of funds available 505 and the tracking account holder 506. Those instructions that pass through the filters are then sent to the trading platform indicated as 507.

The filtering allows the tracking account user 506 to manage the risk exposure of each trade and select specific trades from target accounts, or multiple accounts.

The filter system provides the tracked account the opportunity to provide guidelines to where the filter settings should be set 504. These guide lines are not mandatory but are designed to provide an indication of what risk exposure to expect and therefore how much headroom should be factored in.

The filters and therefore the guidance to the filters include may include one or more of the parameters:

Which accounts can be tracked (can be multiple)

The selection of specific trades from multiple accounts or single accounts, e.g gold only for account A and shares only for account B.

The gross total risk exposure of funds on account - if total cash on account falls by a definable percentage close all open positions and stop tracking

The maximum points exposure by individual product traded - as with above but by selected product

Minimum and maximum trade size by product

Price execution controls - If the execution price is more than a definable number of points away from tracked trader's entry price then do not execute trade. [Default should be no more 20% of the average profitable points gain (e.g. average points gain x 0.20 = default setting). This calculation should be explained in accordance to our systems 30 sec delay].

The foregoing are merely examples of parameters that can be set and are not intended to be limiting. Other parameters may be included additionally or alternatively to the above examples.

Any account can choose to customise the filters or allow the system to default to predetermined rules which automatically govern how the account will trade in accordance to how much funds are deposited.

Once the filters are set, instructions flow from the investment trust through the filter 503 to the execution only trading platform 507.

It should be noted that in the preferred implementation of the system it should not be possible for one user to track the trades of another user that are themselves based on tracking the performance of another user. It is therefore preferred to ensure that only "first time" trades are tracked. This can be achieved by flagging trades as "following" trades so that they can be filtered out of subsequent instructions. It will be appreciated from the foregoing that the apparatus described above may be implemented at least in part in software. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the apparatus described above may be implemented using general purpose computer equipment or using bespoke equipment. The hardware elements, operating systems and programming languages of such computers are conventional in nature, and it is presumed that those skilled in the art are adequately familiar therewith. Of course, the server functions may be implemented in a distributed fashion on a number of similar platforms, to distribute the processing load. Here, aspects of the methods and apparatuses described herein can be executed on a mobile station and on a computing device such as a server. Program aspects of the technology can be thought of as "products" or "articles of manufacture" typically in the form of executable code and/or associated data that is carried on or embodied in a type of machine readable medium. "Storage" type media include any or all of the memory of the mobile stations, computers, processors or the like, or associated modules thereof, such as various semiconductor memories, tape drives, disk drives, and the like, which may provide storage at any time for the software programming. All or portions of the software may at times be communicated through the Internet or various other telecommunications networks. Such communications, for example, may enable loading of the software from one computer or processor into another computer or processor. Thus, another type of media that may bear the software elements includes optical, electrical and electromagnetic waves, such as used across physical interfaces between local devices, through wired and optical landline networks and over various air-links. The physical elements that carry such waves, such as wired or wireless links, optical links or the like, also may be considered as media bearing the software. As used herein, unless restricted to tangible non-transitory "storage" media, terms such as computer or machine "readable medium" refer to any medium that participates in providing instructions to a processor for execution.

Hence, a machine readable medium may take many forms, including but not limited to, a tangible storage carrier, a carrier wave medium or physical transaction medium. Non-volatile storage media include, for example, optical or magnetic disks, such as any of the storage devices in computer(s) or the like, such as may be used to implement the encoder, the decoder, etc. shown in the drawings. Volatile storage media include dynamic memory, such as the main memory of a computer platform. Tangible transmission media include coaxial cables; copper wire and fiber optics, including the wires that comprise the bus within a computer system. Carrier-wave transmission media can take the form of electric or electromagnetic signals, or acoustic or light waves such as those generated during radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR) data communications. Common forms of computer-readable media therefore include for example: a floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, DVD or DVD-ROM, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical storage medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM and EPROM, a FLASH- EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, a carrier wave transporting data or instructions, cables or links transporting such a carrier wave, or any other medium from which a computer can read programming code and/or data. Many of these forms of computer readable media may be involved in carrying one or more sequences of one or more instructions to a processor for execution.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that while the foregoing has described what are considered to be the best mode and, where appropriate, other modes of performing the invention, the invention should not be limited to specific apparatus configurations or method steps disclosed in this description of the preferred embodiment. It is understood that various modifications may be made therein and that the subject matter disclosed herein may be implemented in various forms and examples, and that the teachings may be applied in numerous applications, only some of which have been described herein. It is intended by the following claims to claim any and all applications, modifications and variations that fall within the true scope of the present teachings. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the invention has a broad range of applications, and that the embodiments may take a wide range of modifications without departing from the inventive concept as defined in the appended claims.

Claims

1. A method of processing data in a computer implemented trading system, the system comprising one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms, a host computing system comprising one or more computers processing executed trade data, and one or more client computing devices communicating with the host computing system, the method being carried out at the host computing system and comprising:

filtering from the executed trade data a selection of the executed trades;

sending the instruction to a client computing device.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1 in which:

the preparation of the instructions to trade is carried out before the filtering and comprises preparing an instruction to trade corresponding to all of the executed trades for which data is received, and

the filtering is carried out on the instructions.

3. A method as claimed in claim 1 or claim 2 in which the filtering of the executed trade data performs any combination of the following functions:

selecting of trades by certain traders,

selecting of type of trade,

limiting exposure for available funds,

limiting points loss for individual trades,

specifying maximum amount to be traded,

specifying minimum amount to be traded, and

applying price execution controls.

4. A method as claimed in any preceding claim further comprising receiving trading parameters from one or more client computing devices and filtering the executed trade data according to the received trading parameters.

5. A method according to claim 4 in which the trading parameters include any combination of the following:

selection of one or more traders,

selection of type of trade,

limit on exposure for available funds,

limit on points loss for individual trades,

maximum amount to be traded,

minimum amount to be traded, and

price execution controls.

6. A method according to any preceding claim comprising receiving from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more traders and in response to the request sending to one or more computing devices of the requesting client notifications of the trades of the one or more selected traders immediately upon receipt of executed trade data relating to the one or more selected traders.

7. A method according to claim 6 in which at least some of the notifications are sent with an instruction to execute a trade.

8. A method of processing data in a computer implemented trading system, the system comprising one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms, a host computing system comprising one or more computers processing executed trade data and multiple client computing devices communicating with the host computing system, the method being carried out at the host computing system and comprising:

receiving from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more selected traders trading using the one or more trading platforms; receiving in real time, from the one or more computers implementing the one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

9. A method according to claim 7 or 8 in which the notifications include an indication of whether the trade is a buy or sell trade.

10. A method according to claim 7, 8 or 9 in which if the notification relates to an opening trade it includes any combination of information selected from

Name of account

Fund name being tracked

Name of product traded

Entry price

Direction

Stop loss

Profit limit

Trader conviction weighting

Past performance in product

Number of times user has traded that product.

11. A method according to any of claims 6 to 10 in which if the notification relates to a closing or part closing trade it includes any combination of information selected from

Name of account

Fund name being tracked

Name of product traded

Exit price

Performance.

12. A method according to any of claims 6 to 11 comprising sending with the notification an instruction to perform a trade corresponding to the notified trade.

13. A method according to any preceding claim in which an instruction sent to a client computing device comprises a link to a trading platform for execution of a trade according to the specimen instruction.

14. A method according to any preceding claim comprising analysing the received data relating to the executed trades and making the results of the analysis available to client computing devices.

15. A method as claimed in claim 14 in which the analysing comprises comparing the relative performance of the traders.

16. A method as claimed in claim 15 in which performance is determined in a manner that is irrespective of actual amount traded.

17. A method as claimed in claim 14, 15 or 16 comprising calculating for each executed trade a measure of conviction of the trader.

18. A method as claimed in claim 17 in which the measure of conviction is based on the size of the trade relative to other trades by the same trader.

19. A method according to any preceding claim comprising receiving from trader computing devices permission to follow the trades of the trader by executing corresponding trades and/or providing notifications corresponding to the trades of the trader, and filtering the executed trade data and/or preparing notifications to include only trades by traders from whom permission has been received.

20. A method according to claim 19 in which the permission is restricted to one or more types of trade and the method comprises filtering the executed trade data and/or preparing notifications to include only those types of trade.

21. A method according to claim 19 or claim 20 in which the permission is restricted to one or more products traded and the method comprises filtering the executed trade data and/or preparing notifications to include only those products.

22. A method according to claim 19, 20 or 21 comprising processing payments to one or more traders permitting following the trades of the trader.

23. A method according to claim 22 in which the payments are calculated as a percentage of positive trades.

24. A computing system comprising one or more computers comprising one or more processors configured to:

send the instruction to a client computing device.

25. A computing system comprising one or more computers comprising one or more processors configured to

receive from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more selected traders trading using the one or more trading platforms; receive in real time, from one or more computers implementing the one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;

26. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer readable instructions which when implemented on one or more processors in a computing system cause the system to receive, in real time, from one or more computers implementing one or more trading platforms, data relating to the executed trades of traders trading using the one or more trading platforms; filter from the executed trade data a selection of the executed trades;

send the instruction to a client computing device.

27. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer readable instructions which when implemented on one or more processors in a computing system cause the system to receive from each of one or more client computing devices a request to be notified of the trades of one or more selected traders trading using the one or more trading platforms;