Buy-Side Technology Trends: Pressure to Address Dynamic Needs Across Assets Will Likely Shorten IT Project Timelines in 2008. Changes that are likely to gather momentum in IT deployment in the investment industry include greater use of complex event processing, shorter timelines for conceiving and completing IT projects, advances in trading technology, and pressure to lower latency in data delivery.

Industry Alert: Major IT Inefficiencies Holding Back Asian Markets. European and US firms looking to make inroads in Asia face an “upstairs-centric” information market, and in Japan in particular, they contend with slower trade matching and execution times.

Asian Markets Monitor: Rapid Evolving Electronic Markets Leave Tokyo Behind. The Japanese capital market, especially the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), is struggling to keep up operationally with a rebound begun in 2002 after a decade of underperformance.

Spotlight: Chris Ryan, Chief Executive, Asia-Pacific, ING Investment Management.

Multi Asset Class Trading: Aegis’ Athena Suite Offers Integrated Trading Solution. Aegis Software Inc. is making significant strides in the FX marketplace with its AthenaTrader front-end trading solution, a suite that also includes proprietary trading, position trading and agency broker trading, with fixed-income capabilities to be added by year-end 2008.

Derivatives Trading: Markit and SwapsWire Pursue Multiple Synergies. OTC derivatives trade processing company Markit Group Ltd.’s acquisition of SwapsWire, the OTC derivatives trading consortium, looks like the first salvo of consolidation among OTC derivatives venues.

The News Network: Linedata Links LongView With BIDS ATS and Aqua Trading; Mackenzie Financial Taps Omgeo CTM For Trade Processing; Nasdaq and Major Firms Form Portal For 144A Trading.