Platform / Execution Management
Built for Institutional-Grade Execution
The Order and Execution Management System (OEMS) built for 24/7 markets. Centralise multi-venue routing and gain complete oversight to optimise fill quality, control market impact, and ensure trading discipline.
Fragmented Execution Creates Operational Risk
Trading is often managed across exchange-native interfaces, custom APIs and manual workflows. As venue count increases, visibility and control decrease.
This is compounded by:
No consolidated cross-venue order view
Inconsistent execution data across systems
Manual allocation and booking processes
Delayed exposure updates into risk systems
Operational risk as trading volume scales
Execution should not operate separately from portfolio, risk and reconciliation workflows.
Execution Built for 24/7 Markets
Cross-Venue Execution Across CeFi, TradFi and Liquidity Providers
Trade seamlessly across centralised exchanges, traditional venues and liquidity providers through a single interface, eliminating fragmented venue workflows.
Smart Order Routing & Best Available Price
Intelligent price discovery. Our SOR technology routes orders across multiple liquidity sources to achieve the optimal execution price, whilst helping to minimise fees and market impact.
Advanced Order Types & Algos
Go beyond simple limit orders. Utilise a full suite of advanced order types and execution algorithms to systematically work large orders and control your execution strategy.
Execution Intelligence & TCA
Access granular execution data, real-time pricing and transaction cost analysis (TCA) to evaluate performance, refine strategies and strengthen governance.
API-First Execution
Built API-first on REST, WebSocket and FIX. Submit, modify and monitor orders programmatically with the same coverage as the interface, or use our configurable workspaces, shortcuts and hotkeys for high-touch trading.
Standardised Execution Data
All trades, fills and order activity are normalised at source within a unified data architecture, ensuring consistent downstream portfolio, risk and reconciliation workflows without manual intervention.
Pre-Trade to Post-Trade, in One Workflow
Execution is not isolated. It is embedded within the broader trade lifecycle.
Pre-Trade
Liquidity visibility and exposure monitoring prior to order placement, along with pre-trade compliance.
Execution
Centralised multi-venue order routing and execution tracking.
Post-Trade
Instant position and P&L updates across custodians and counterparties, with automated trade verification and audit-ready record keeping.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an Execution Management System?
An Execution Management System (EMS) is an institutional-grade software platform designed to provide professional traders with a single, unified interface to access different markets. Its primary purpose is to help firms achieve best execution by centralising liquidity from various sources—including exchanges, OTC desks, and market makers—and providing a suite of sophisticated tools to manage orders.
Key functions of an EMS include:
- Smart Order Routing (SOR): Automatically finding the most efficient path to execute a trade across multiple venues to minimise slippage and cost.
- Algorithmic Trading: Offering a suite of pre-built algorithms to execute large orders with minimal market impact.
- Pre-Trade Analytics: Providing tools to model potential trade costs and market impact before committing capital.
- Consolidated Market Data: Aggregating price data from all connected venues into one unified view.
The Elwood EMS is a core component of our integrated platform, working seamlessly with our other modules to provide a complete, end-to-end workflow from pre-trade analysis to final settlement.
How does Elwood connect to different trading venues?
The Elwood platform connects to exchanges by functioning as a single, unified gateway for our clients. We manage the significant technical and operational complexity of integrating with numerous liquidity venues, each with its own unique API protocols and data formats.
Our approach involves two key layers:
- Institutional-Grade Connectivity: We establish secure, low-latency, and resilient connections to a wide range of leading global exchanges, ECNs, and OTC liquidity providers. This creates a robust and reliable network for routing orders and receiving market data.
- Standardised Data Normalisation: At the core of our platform is a powerful data layer that ingests all the disparate information from these venues and normalises it into a single, consistent, and audit-ready data model.
For our clients, this means they bypass the entire process of building and maintaining individual API connections.
Instead, they connect once to the Elwood platform to gain unified access to the entire market, allowing them to focus on their strategy, not on infrastructure management.
Does execution data update portfolio and risk systems in real time?
Yes. Real-time updates are a fundamental architectural principle of the Elwood platform. All execution data instantly and simultaneously updates the portfolio management, risk management, and post-trade modules.
This is possible because our platform is built on a unified data layer, which acts as a single source of truth for the entire firm.
Unlike systems that rely on slow, end-of-day batch files or fragile point-to-point connections, our integrated approach ensures that:
- When a trade is executed via the OEMS, the position change is instantly reflected in the PMS.
- The P&L, market exposure, and counterparty risk metrics are immediately recalculated in the risk module.
- The trade data is simultaneously available to post-trade modules for settlement and reconciliation workflows.
This eliminates data lags, prevents reconciliation breaks, and ensures that traders, portfolio managers, and risk officers are all operating from the same live, consistent dataset at every moment.
Can institutions apply pre-trade risk controls?
Yes. Applying robust, pre-trade risk controls is a core component of the Elwood execution workflow. Our platform is designed to provide an institutional-grade safety layer that prevents costly errors and enforces compliance with the firm's risk mandate.
Before any order is sent to market, it is automatically checked against a sophisticated, client-defined matrix of rules and limits. This includes controls such as:
- Exposure Limits: Preventing trades that would breach limits for a specific asset, currency, or counterparty.
- Order Size and Price Limits: Blocking orders that are outside of reasonable size or price parameters to prevent 'fat finger' errors.
- Instrument Whitelists: Ensuring traders can only interact with an approved list of tradable assets.
- Governance Controls: Enforcing user-specific permissions and trading rights.
This pre-flight check is instantaneous and provides a critical layer of preventative risk management, ensuring that all trading activity remains within the firm's predetermined risk appetite.
Is this suitable for multi-strategy funds?
Yes, the Elwood platform is architected specifically to handle the complexity inherent in multi-strategy and multi-entity institutional environments. Its design provides both the holistic oversight required by firm leadership and the granular control needed by individual strategy managers.
Key features that make our platform ideal for multi-strategy funds include:
- Hierarchical Portfolio Structure: Our Portfolio Management System (PMS) allows for the creation of complex, parent-child book structures. This enables the discrete segregation, tracking, and performance attribution of each individual strategy (e.g., arbitrage, directional, market making) while still allowing for a consolidated, firm-wide view.
- Unified Risk Management: Risk managers can see a real-time, aggregated view of the entire fund's exposure. Crucially, they can also drill down to understand the specific risk contributions and correlations of each underlying strategy.
- Flexible Integration: Discretionary or high-touch strategies can be managed through our intuitive user interface, while systematic and quantitative strategies can be deployed via our comprehensive, low-latency API. Both methods operate within the same unified risk and portfolio framework.
From Execution Strategy to Operational Reality
Gain real-time exposure intelligence across markets that trade 24/7.