GB2352599A

GB2352599A - Market trading data display

Info

Publication number: GB2352599A
Application number: GB9917282A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Gerard Kinneen
Original assignee: CHURCHILL RISK MAN SYSTEMS Ltd
Current assignee: CHURCHILL RISK MAN SYSTEMS Ltd
Priority date: 1999-07-22
Filing date: 1999-07-22
Publication date: 2001-01-31
Also published as: AU6006500A; GB9917282D0; WO2001008057A1

Abstract

A market trade data display apparatus, comprising: display means which display data; communication means which receive data in electronic form from a market trading system; processing means which process data received by the communications means and which control the display means to display the processed data; characterised in that; the processing means controls the display means to display the processed data in the form of a grid or matrix of two variables in which an interstice of the grid or matrix is divided into a plurality of display areas each providing a display of a respective attribute of a combination of the said two variables identified by the said interstice.

Description

1 2352599 Market Trade Data Display Apparatus The present invention

relates to a market trade data display apparatus.

Various display apparatus have been provided to enable, for example, stock traders, particularly stock brokers, to receive and view information concerning stock trading and to place buy and sell orders. Conventionally the information is received and displayed as alphanumeric data but so much information is available and the information changes so quickly that the data has to be analysed by a computer program to display only the information which is of interest to the stock trader. The result of the analysis is, for example, a list of commodities and the current prices at which they are being traded.

Usually in market trading speed is paramount. Speed is paramount in executing transactions, but it is also paramount in extracting the information required for decision making from the very large amounts of data available.

The present invention seeks to meet the increasing demand for an improved method of dealing with the circumstances such as those just mentioned.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a market trade data display apparatus, comprising: display means which display data; communication means which receive data in electronic form from a market trading system; processing means which process data received by the communications means and which control the display means to display the processe4 data; characterised in that; the processing means controls the display means to display the processed data in the form of a-grid or matrix of two variables in which an interstice of the grid or matrix is divided into a plurality of display areas each providing a display of a respective attribute of a combination of the said two variables identified by the said interstice.

2 Embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of further example only and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:- Figure I illustrates in general outline part of a data display apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention and in particular the display of a grid or matrix, Figure 2 illustrates to an enlarged scale the top row of the grid shown in figure 1, Figure 3 illustrates to an enlarged scale a part of the first column of the grid shown in figure 1, Figure 4 illustrates to an enlarged scale part of the apparatus illustrated in figure 1, Figure 5 illustrates to an enlarged scale an addition to part of the apparatus illustrated in figure 1.

A detailed explanation of one embodiment of the present invention will now be given with reference to figures I to 4. Figure I shows a grid or matrix 10 displayed on a screen 1. The top row 12 of the grid is shown to an enlarged scale in figure 2 and part of the first column 14 of the grid is shown to an enlarged scale in figure 3. The top row of the grid thus shows a number of different stock exchanges, such as London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Hong Kong. The first column of the grid lists by name a number of clients (for ease of reference, herein shown as "Client I" etc) of a stockbroker who is using the display apparatus. The grid 10 may have a general background colour, for example grey, with the grid lines, stock exchange names and client names shown in another colour, such as black. f The display apparatus has a communications section which is connected to receive data, by telephone and/or satellite transmission, from the respective trading systems of each of the stock exchanges listed across the top row 12 of the grid 10. The data is real time data and the communications section enables buy and sell orders to be transmitted to the trading systems. The display apparatus also has a processor section which processes the data received by the communications section 3 and controls the screen 1 so as to display the processed data. The processor section enables the stockbroker to set up the grid 10 to display the required stock markets (in row 12) and clients (in column 14). Although not illustrated, the display apparatus also has a conventional keyboard and pointing device, such as a mouse. Of course, the apparatus can equally well be provided additionally or alternatively with other input devices such as a touch screen and/or light pen.

Figure 4 shows to an enlarged scale one of the interstices 16 of the grid 10. For example, the interstice shown in figure 4 might correspond to the combination or intersection of New York from row 12 with Client 3 from column 14. As shown, the interstice is divided into five display areas. For ease of reference, these display areas are identified by letters A to E. Each interstice of grid 10 outside of row 12 and column 14 is divided into its own set of five display areas A to E.

In the example given, display area A is used to indicate whether or not Client 3 has any active (as yet unfulfilled) "buy" orders on the New York stock exchange. If the data received by the corrununications section identifies that client 3 has one or more active buy orders on the New York stock exchange then the processor section controls the screen 1 to change the colour of display area A from the background grey to a different colour, for example red. The change of colour of display area A indicates the presence or absence of active buy orders for client 3 in the New York stock exchange. With its colour changed to red, display area A does not of itself indicate how many active buy orders there are, just that there is at least one, and does not of itself indicate which stock the buy order(s) relates to. If the display screen cursor is moved to display area A and the mouse,clicked, or a function key pressed, the processor section controls the screen 1 so as to produce a display showing the detail of the ufi derlying buy orders which have caused display area A to change colour. However, the most significant benefit is that by simply looking across the row for client 3 to see if any of the respective display areas A is coloured red, the stockbroker can immediately determine if client 3 has any active buy orders in any of the stock markets. In commercial trading it can be just as important to determine if there are no trades as it is to determine if there are some.

4 To make such a determination using conventional stock market trade data display apparatus may take many minutes, during which an opportunity for example to cancel a particular buy order may have been missed. The display apparatus of the present invention is thus of enormous benefit and commercial significance.

Display area B may be used, for example, to indicate sell orders and the ftinction is essentially the same as described for display area A. Very preferably the change of colour for display area B is different to that for display area A. Thus, in the example give, if Client 3 has any active sell orders on the New York stock exchange then the processor section controls screen 1 to change the colour of display area B from the background grey to, say, yellow. Display areas C and D are used in the same way to indicate, for example, the presence or absence of any filled or cancelled orders, respectively.

Grid 10 may be used to initiate instructions or orders to be sent to any of the stock markets. In the example given, the interstice illustrated in figure 4 would be used to initiate buy, sell or cancel orders (or the like) to be sent to the New York stock exchange trading system on behalf of Client 3. This function can be achieved in a number of different ways. For example, the appropriate "order form" can be displayed on the screen at an appropriate point in the "drill down" process mentioned above (e.g. clicking on area A to display individual buy orders and then clicking on one of the orders to display an " order form" which can be completed and sent to the stock market to cancel that buy order). Alternatively one of the display areas in each interstice, for example area E, can be reserved for initiating orders to be sent to the respective stock market. In this case clicking on area E results in an appropriate " order form" being displayed to enable orders to be sent to the relevant stock market trading system. Such an alternative might be particularly beneficial for executing an order, for example, to immediately close all trading positions held in a particular stock market, or to withdraw from the market unfulfilled orders represented at the area of the interstice in which the mouse pointer is pointed.

It will be appreciated that display areas A to D do not display the actual trading data itself, but instead show the status thereof. The display is thus not "analogue" and the display apparatus is in effect a real time interpretative tool.

Figure 5 illustrates an optional addition to the embodiment illutrated in figures 1 to 4. The addition is a "consolidation" layer or band, which is indicated by the reference numeral 20 and by the cross-hatch shading. That is, the consolidation layer is row two of the grid excluding colurrm one plus column two excluding row one. The interstices 20 of the consolidation layer are divided into display areas as described above. Operation of the consolidation layer is as follows. When one of the display areas A to D in the main body of the grid is activated (as a result of some underlying trade), the corresponding display area of the respective intersticies in the consolidation layer are also activated. As an example, if display area A in the interstice defined by column four and row five is activated (eg Client 4 has an active buy order on the New York stock exchange), then display area A in the interstice defined by column four row two and display area A in the interstice defined by column two row five will both also be activated. If then display area A in the interstice defined by column four row six is activated (eg Client 5 also has an active buy order on the New York stock exchange), display area A in the interstice defined by column two row six is also activated. Display area A of the interstice defined by column four row two is already activated and therefore does not change. However, whereas a mouse click in display area A of the interctice defined by column two row five will "drill down" to details of the single buy order for Client 4, a mouse click in display area A of the interstice defined by column four row two will "drill down" to details of the Iwo trades on the New York stock exchange. The potentially more useful benefit, however, of the consolidation layer is that by looking across row two it can immediately be determined if there are any active trades (considering display area A) on any of the stock exchanges. Similarly, by looking down column two it can immediately be determined if any clients have active trades (again considering, for this example, only display area A). The speed of assessment of this type of information provided by the consolidation layer can be very important in day-to-day trading activities.

6 The interstice 22 at column one row one (also shown with cross-hatching in figure 5) clearly does not form part of the consolidation layer nor part of the main grid. It can have a function, for example, of generating (when clicked) a generic order form for use across all of the stock markets, or reorganisation of the entire grid 10 in accordance with predetermined criteria.

The embodiment described and illustrated with reference to figures 1 to 5 uses a combination of the variables "stock market" and "client". Such a display apparatus might be used by a stockbroker servicing the needs of a number of clients. For an individual trader, the display apparatus might be modified to display the grid as a combination of the variables "stock market" and "commodities".

Although reference has been made to stocks, the apparatus and description is equally applicable to other alternatives such as options and futures or commodities, separately or in combination together.

The communications section of the display apparatus is responsible for providing the correct protocol interface (driver) for each stock market trading system. The communications section can also hold all of the information necessary to identify and authenticate orders sent to the respective trading systems by the person using the display apparatus. Of course, such matters are subject to the conventional forms of security for example for identifying the user of the display apparatus. r 7

Claims

1. A market trade data display apparatus, comprising:

display means which display data; communication means which receive data in electronic form from a market trading system; processing means which process data received by the communications means and which control the display means to display the processed data; characterised in that; the processing means controls the display means to display the processed data in the form of a grid or matrix of two variables in which an interstice of the grid or matrix is divided into a plurality of display areas each providing a display of a respective attribute of a combination of the said two variables identified by the said interstice.

2. A display apparatus as claimed in claim 1, further characterised in that the processing means controls the display means to identify a plurality of markets as one of said two variables; and in that said communications means receives data from respective market trading systems for each of said plurality of markets.

3. A display apparatus as claimed in claim 2, further characterised in that the processing means controls the display means to identify a plurality of traders as the other of said two variables.

4. A display apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, further characterised in that the processing means tontrols the display means to change the colour of one of said plurality of display areas when said respective attribute changes.

8

5. A display apparatus as claimed in claim 4, further characterised in that the processing means controls the display means such that the change of colour is unique for each of said plurality of display areas within said interstice.

6. A display apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the processing means controls the display means such that one row of the grid includes a respective interstice for each displayed value of the first variable such that said respective interstice displays an indication of whether or not any other interstice of the grid is providing a display of an attribute of a combination including the said respective value of the first variable.

7. A display apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the processing means controls the display means such that one row of the grid includes a respective interstice for each displayed value of the second variable such that said respective interstice displays an indication of whether or not any other interstice of the grid is providing a display of an attribute of a combination including the said respective value of the second variable.

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