Quantitative analysts have always been studying the markets with the aim to support the activities and the results of the traders. However, their role at the market has been in the background and they were not profit responsible. When looking closely at market and fundamental data, ideas and trading opportunities appeared, but not all of them could be seized by traders, e.g. because of complexity and calculation as well as reaction times. A tool that would allow the analysts to implement their own algorithms in Python and execute them at the market would enable them to seize new opportunities and prove their ideas.

With an existing ETRM-system in place, a search for a stand-alone solution began. The sole purpose should be allowing efficient implementation of their own algorithms and building an internal back testing tool that holds historical market data.

Main priority for this company was to find an efficient and lightweight tool that allows them to implement their own strategies and tools in Python. Therefore, their focus was more on the backend of the system and the capabilities of the API. The integration into the existing software landscape should be easy and the tool should act as a hub for trading at several exchanges. For this reason, PowerBot was the perfect fit and allowed them to go live with their first algorithms relatively soon.

Today, they are trading short-term markets with PowerBot across several European exchanges and market areas with a full set of algorithms. Meanwhile, they have established a dedicated department for algorithmic trading which continuously grows. In a short time and with the help of PowerBot, they became one of the leading European companies in algorithmic trading.

PowerBot is a perfect match for companies that want to implement their own strategies and focus on fast development of algorithms, rather than building implementations of the exchange’s API by themselves. Analysts can easily handle the tool and they do not need to worry about the implementation of basic functions, saving a lot of time and allowing them to focus on the real deal, the trading strategy. The architecture of PowerBot, which is a cloud hosted web service provided on a software-as-a-service basis, was also beneficial for a quick start of the project.

Previously, the company fully relied on manual trading via the exchange’s official client. Due to increasing volume and liquidity on the market, the order entries and especially modifications became a very time consuming effort for the 24/7 shift traders. The customer identified that it had reoccurring processes on the intraday market for the marketing of their power plants and market marking, like adjusting spreads and prices. In addition, observing and reacting to changes on the market quickly is essential for their profit. However, if traders are occupied by entering and modifying orders, they cannot focus on monitoring the market that much.

The general idea was not to switch to fully automated trading, but to support the traders with automation of reoccurring tasks, that allows them to focus on market observation and decision-making. As they had an existing ETRM system in place that fulfilled their needs, they were looking for a standalone solution to automate tasks.

After the process of an internal evaluation and decision-making, the company decided to use PowerBot’s abilities to develop and implement a custom dashboard. Designed as a user interface for traders, it allows them to control their orders and general trading activities with clickable buttons, like increasing or decreasing the market maker spread or to monitor the market for given situations. The in-house analytics team developed the dashboard in .NET after defining the needs and specifications.

Besides the increased trading efficiency, one of the many benefits of this solution is an interface specifically designed for the needs of their power traders and every button is the way they need it. The traders can now focus on decision-making instead of entering or modifying orders.

As this example perfectly shows, PowerBot delivers very high value for clients that do not want to go for full automated trading, but automate repetitive tasks, which are triggered either automatically or manually. Our web service focusses on a simple to implement API that allows to build tailor-made dashboards and scripts with very little effort and at a lower cost than fully integrated ETRM solutions. Hence, PowerBot saves effort and human resources of a full custom implementation of the exchange’s API, which needs constant maintenance. Further, with the monthly subscription model, initial investments are low and time to market is fast.