Successful organizations typically understand the importance of, and place an emphasis on the concepts of effective risk management. Within Assent LLC, we strongly believe in such concepts and apply them in a number of ways. Identifying, managing and limiting risk levels, including potential exposure remains a critically important area of focus for Assent LLC.
Our focus on risk management isn't just geared towards "after the fact" responses. Indeed, during our initial pre - account opening conversations, our Branch Office Managers will confer with you to gain a better understanding of your trading style, including leverage requirements in order to establish appropriate trading parameters for you.
In addition, our trading software has several built in control features that are intended to assist traders in staying within appropriate trading boundaries. Our custom - built Risk Manager application alerts Branch Office Managers/Supervisors at periodic intervals throughout the day when certain trading and/or position thresholds approach levels that may be suitable for further review.
In summary, Risk Management is an area we will continue to focus on. We welcome suggestions from the Assent trading community on how we can further improve these and related risk management - oriented tools.
With the exception of the MAX LOSS setting, please note that our trading software does not -- on its own -- automatically and/or actively trigger orders or cancellations on your behalf. We will, however, when appropriate, restrict your account from taking on any new positions by only permitting "liquidating transactions" or by establishing a maximum amount of shares you can hold or include in your order. In certain cases, these controls are structured on a "security specific level", in other instances such controls are structured at the account level. To give traders a better hands-on experience while evaluating our software, these parameters can also be activated and applied while in Simulation Mode.
It's always best to have a good understanding of how these and other parameter controls work before you start trading on our platform. Traders should be sure to review any questions or concerns with their Branch Office Manager. In certain cases, traders can choose to "further tighten" such parameters on their own.
A Partial Description of Some of the Risk Management Focused Fields Within ANVIL
1) Buying Power – Total amount of dollars available for use by the specified trader during a given trading day
2) Max Open Pos$ - Maximum allowable dollar value for Open Positions by symbol
3) Min Shortable Price – Minimum allowed price for shorting (anything under this dollar value will return an error)
4) Short Sale Multiplier – This coefficient multiplied by open long position, will give you the total amount of allowable short sells.
5) Max Open Pos Size - Maximum allowable size for Open Positions by symbol
6) Max Order Size - Maximum allowable order size for ONE order
7) Max Open Positions (count) – Maximum allowable TOTAL number of open positions for all symbols
8) Max Position Pending Orders - Maximum allowable TOTAL pending order for all symbols
9) Cancel Count - Maximum allowable number of cancels sent to server. This tells ANVIL to stop sending "Cancel Requests" after the cancel button/key is hit this many times
10) Max Total Shares - Maximum allowable shares traded (pending or executed) at that given moment - a real-time count
11) Max Traded Shares - Maximum allowable shares traded throughout the day (pending or executed) – a cumulative count
12) Max Loss - Maximum allowable loss for associated trader for ALL symbols
13) Max Loss per stock - Maximum allowable loss for associated trader for ONE symbol
14) Max Open Loss per stock - Maximum allowable OPEN loss for associated trader for ONE symbol
15) Closed P&L Offset – Offsets Closed P&L to give the trader a "mental disadvantage"
16) Allow After Hours Trading or Not - this setting allows for the permissioning of whether a trader ID should be allowed to originate orders after the traditional market hours
The PnL Monitor:
In addition to the risk management trader - specific parameter configurable settings built into ANVIL, we use several risk management oversight tools as part of our overall field supervision processes. One such tool is the PnL Monitor, which is part of the integrated series of web based applications that we call the Information Central Admin Suite. It’s supported by a real time pricing feed and is dynamically polling our servers to update exposure and realized profit and loss totals as executions are filled and as orders are being created. The screen shot below is how a typical Branch Office Manager or referring member might monitor a group of traders at the branch level. Drill - down capabilities are supported, allowing Branch Office Managers to quickly access more details when applicable.
Please note that the data shown below represents simulated data. These are neither actual accounts, nor actual amounts.
Another facet of the PnL Monitor includes a provision to activate the monitoring process at a trader ID specific level. A mock up screen shot of such a view appears below. This view provides a Branch Office Manager or referring members with the means to monitor a trader’s open positions and the respective open exposure and profit and loss by stock.
As with the Branch Level PnL Monitor screen shot, please note that the data shown below represents simulated data. These are not positions for an actual trader.
