SDS Financial Technologies Powers On Point Executions’ STING Smart Order-Routing - the Options Industry’s Most Advanced Execution Venue

– STING Puts Control of Execution Quality in the Trader’s Hands –

NEW YORK, NY – February 27, 2007 – SDS Financial Technologies, a leading provider of powerful, comprehensive trading and electronic marketplace solutions for institutions, exchanges and hedge funds, today announced that they have entered into a multi-year agreement with On Point Executions LLC, an agency-only broker, to power the options industry’s most advanced execution venue, On Point’s STING smart order-routing system.  STING is available to buy-side and sell-side clients. 

Built on SDS Trader technology, SDS’s next-generation direct market access trading platform, On Point’s proprietary - STING - intelligent options routing algorithm interacts with liquidity pools with preferences defined according to best price and past performance of how the provider interacted with order flow.  STING then monitors all existing market centers for execution quality and uses this information to determine the most efficient execution venues to route orders.

The STING routing algorithm uses empirical data to determine which destination will yield optimal order execution and has the ability to garner more liquidity by analyzing the intricate pricing and decision-making logic of the existing industry players to provide superior execution quality and added value to On Point customers.   Execution venues that in the past have shown greater liquidity at the best price quoted enjoy a heavier weighting in the algorithm.

Unique Sweep Function Increases Execution Results
STING's unique electronic “sweep” function can buy all posted offers or sell all posted bids in a virtual instant and ensures that customer’s orders can interact with non-electronic and electronically posted liquidity pools on multiple exchanges simultaneously.  STING captures all posted and non-posted liquidity while at the same time minimizing market impact.  This results in clients achieving better than expected execution quality with STING than any other industry execution offering.

STING is FIX 4.4 compliant and can be used through On Point Trader or it can be integrated into any existing front-end application. 

“STING provides a solution for obsolete technology that holds option orders “hostage” to liquidity of a single venue at a time and we expect the demand for this evolving market facility to be incredibly high,” says Paul Carrozzo, co-principal at On Point.  “Now that we have partnered with SDS Financial Technologies to offer the marketplace STING routing, we can deliver more liquidity then what the Street is offering at any given point electronically.”

“We are pleased to work with On Point to custom-develop the STING smart order routing system as part of the On Point Trader execution platform,” says Peter Maragos, managing director of SDS Financial Technologies.  “STING’s highly desirable capacity will serve On Point’s buy-side and sell-side clients and play a key role in On Point’s continued growth in the marketplace.”

About SDS Financial Technologies
Founded in 1988, SDS Financial Technologies, Inc. (www.sdsft.com) is a New York- based, leading provider of powerful, comprehensive trading and electronic marketplace solutions for institutions, exchanges and hedge funds.  With three business lines consisting of market data, trading technology and systems technology, SDS focuses on the latest trends and technologies that drive the global marketplace.  The SDS development team specializes in large, real-time, mission-critical systems that keep their clients on the forefront of advanced market technology.  SDS has two offices with data centers with headquarters in downtown Manhattan, as well as a world-class development center in Bangalore, India.  The SDS development team specializes in large, real-time mission-critical systems.  SDS clients include major stock and futures exchanges as well as some of the largest and most successful financial services companies in the world.

About On Point Executions
On Point Executions LLC (www.onpointx.com) is an agency-only broker servicing financial institutions, hedge funds and money management firms and was founded under the guiding principles of market integrity and trust.  Institutional orders require special handling that must be addressed from the point of order acceptance.  The market landscape has dramatically evolved.  The advent of decimalization, the changing role of exchange specialists, and the proliferation of electronic markets have necessitated that brokers fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities in a dynamic environment with acumen and efficiency.  On Point customers receive the benefits of both market structures.  Our hybrid execution philosophy provides electronic anonymity along with a seasoned staff of experienced equity and options traders who can provide the human capital required in complex trades.  We have developed strong relationships with our liquidity providing clientele, establishing a safe transfer of information, thereby minimizing market impact on larger size trades.  Our "dark" liquidity providers are evaluated on a constant basis, to ensure market integrity.