Trading Trends and Challenges 2024: Dealers Connect 4.0 Panel Discussion Summarised

On December 5th, Dealers Connect 4.0 brought together industry leaders at the beautiful restaurant Noa in Limassol. The event was a blast - with lots of great food, tasty drinks and meaningful conversation like the panel discussions we put together, hosted by Elina Pedersen (Co-Founder and CRO of Your Bourse) and Roman Garanin (Founder and CEO of Yourfintech).

The first panel discussion of the evening, Trading Trends and Challenges 2024, tackled key issues facing trading desks today and our guest speakers looked at the tools and strategies that are shaping the industry. The full recording of the discussion is available below.

Challenges in 2024

Panelists Miroslav Georgiev (Head of Dealing and Trading Operations at Taurex & Zenfinex), Michalis Neofytou (Chief Dealer and Executive Director at ATFX & ATFX Connect), and Lochlan White (Chief Commercial Officer at Scope Prime) shared their thoughts on how trading desks have changed this year. Among the most pressing challenges were the handling of swap-free accounts, managing one-directional gold exposures, and addressing the trading preferences of clients in expanding markets like Latin America.

Miroslav highlighted the continued issues with swap and bonus abusers, noting how detailed monitoring and customized account configurations help mitigate these risks. "We monitor constantly," Miroslav said. "We compare what is the swap which was saved from the certain account...and we compare the generated swap and commission with the saved swap."

In turn, Michalis shared how ATFX adapted to volatile gold markets, by using dynamic margin and spread adjustments to maintain stability and competitiveness. “We developed some technologies that adjust the margin and the spreads according to the market conditions," Michalis explained.

Lochlan elaborated on the importance of strong counterparty relationships and internal financial foundations to deal with the high demands of gold trading and make sure retail clients benefitted from the best available service. "It’s all about making sure that you face safe counterparties as I said before-  checking balance sheets and the licenses that they have and ensuring that you get the best possible product and that people will honor the spreads that they have on screen”, Lochlan mentioned.

About Innovative Tools

The panelists also shed light on the technologies and tools that have been instrumental in managing these challenges. Miroslav outlined how a sophisticated in-house risk management system classifies clients by knowledge level and trading behaviour, enabling targeted measures against potential abuse. Michalis, on the other hand, brought up the implementation of AI dynamic hedging tools, which are great for monitoring client behaviour in real time and adjusting trading conditions accordingly. "We introduced three tools and features this year to our dealing desk," Michalis noted. "The first one is an AI risk management tool which basically monitors client positions and behaviours in real time." "The second system is what we call a dynamic engine pricing," Michalis noted. "It makes adjustments to the spreads according to the market conditions and the type of client, so we can have better execution and more tight spreads even in volatile market conditions (...) the third is a tool for latency management that allows us to detect latency arbitrage.”

Lochlan then underlined the critical need for advanced monitoring systems to detect latency arbitrage and abusive trading patterns. He claimed that leveraging insights from a broad client base is valuable to stay ahead, and reinforced the importance of technology in modern trading operations. "We also implemented one tool for market abuse, so it’s more for compliance," Lochlan added.

The Future

As the discussion drew to a close, the panelists addressed the importance of fostering collaboration between brokers and liquidity providers to tackle industry-wide issues. While dangerous trading patterns like overleveraging and risky strategies persist, innovative tools and strategic partnerships continue to pave the way for a more resilient trading environment.

Dealers Connect 4.0 once again proved to be a valuable platform for sharing thoughts, technologies and sparking meaningful discussions. Stay tuned for more updates as we look forward to hosting future events for our community in 2025.