Bank of America Merrill Lynch Launches Instinct®, Firm’s Global Re-engineered Algorithmic Trading Strategy

Bank of America Merrill Lynch today announced the launch of its enhanced flagship algorithmic trading strategy, Instinct®. A best-of-breed suite of global algorithmic trading tools, Instinct is utilized by institutional equity clients to enhance and optimize their trading outcomes.

Instinct features five urgency levels to achieve a broad set of trading objectives and takes advantage of a quantitative impact model that fine-tunes parameters on an order-specific basis. Its underlying architecture has been completely revamped, making it a highly efficient trading strategy.

“Since the initial rollout, client adoption has been swifter than anticipated,” said Roger Anerella, head of Global Execution Services. “Instinct is rapidly becoming one of the most frequently used algorithms in our portfolio of algorithmic products. Its intelligent reaction to quantitative signals helps our clients achieve their trading objectives, especially in times of high volume and volatility.”

Instinct was developed in response to clients’ need for a streamlined but highly sophisticated offering. The algo has been simplified by combining overlapping strategies and reducing parameter complexity.

“We’ve taken the complexity out of the front-end and moved it to the back-end so entering trades is much more intuitive,” said Ashok Krishnan, head of Execution Services, EMEA. “Traders still have these very innovative and powerful tools at their fingertips, but we’ve made them easier to use.”

The strategy, currently available in the U.S., EMEA and Asia, supports trading in diverse market conditions across varying market caps, employs a suite of real-time signals and uses a quantitative model that calculates order tradability and parameters. Regardless of the trading need – from dark liquidity aggregation to instant market access – Instinct can be tailored to accommodate a wide range of execution strategy goals. The depth, versatility and speed of Instinct make it a compelling choice for clients.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is a leading global provider of equity, options and futures trading, sales and research services to mutual funds, hedge funds, broker-dealers, pensions, endowments and other institutions. A 2011 Greenwich Associates survey ranked BofA Merrill a top-three U.S. equity electronic trading provider, No. 1 broker for U.S. equity sales quality and among the top three in U.S. equity trading vote share, which measures banks’ relative importance to buy-side institutions. Its award-winning algorithmic trading platform was ranked as one of the top three Pan-European brokerage firms for electronic trading algorithmic quality in the 2011 Thomson Reuters’ Extel Pan-European Survey and one of the top three providers of algorithmic trading in The Trade’s 2010 Algorithmic Trading Awards.

Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 58 million consumer and small business relationships with approximately 5,700 retail banking offices and approximately 17,800 ATMs and award-winning online banking with 30 million active users. Bank of America is among the world's leading wealth management companies and is a global leader in corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 4 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations in more than 40 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is the marketing name for the global banking and global markets businesses of Bank of America Corporation. Lending, derivatives, and other commercial banking activities are performed globally by banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation, including Bank of America, N.A., member FDIC. Securities, strategic advisory, and other investment banking activities are performed globally by investment banking affiliates of Bank of America Corporation (“Investment Banking Affiliates”), including, in the United States, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, and Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp, which are registered broker-dealer and members of FINRA and SIPC, and, in other jurisdictions, locally registered entities. Investment products offered by Investment Banking Affiliates: Are Not FDIC Insured * May Lose Value * Are Not Bank Guaranteed.

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