Goldman Sachs Announces the Launch of Visual Structuring

Goldman Sachs announces the launch of Visual Structuring^TM, a tool that aims to streamline institutional clients’ workflows for options pre-trade analysis with an innovative, mobile-first approach

Visual Structuring, offered via Goldman Sachs Marquee, is a visual, dynamic, and intuitive way to discover derivatives prices. Supporting a wide range of option structures, the tool combines all the information that a trader needs into a single chart view that is easily shareable.

AMSTERDAM – Goldman Sachs announced the launch of Visual Structuring, a patent-pending new tool for options price discovery and trade idea generation, available through Goldman Sachs Marquee. Starting with FX options, Visual Structuring provides a mobile-first way to quickly price variations, assess scenarios, run backtesting analysis, and collaborate with colleagues wherever they are.

Over the last two decades, little has changed in options price discovery. Traditional column-based pricers inspired by spreadsheets are still the norm, even if they are produced as desktop applications or as web-based tools. Much of the historical focus of technology providers to the buy-side has been on optimizing the point of execution. However, the vast majority of a trader’s time is spent during the ideation process: pricing different trade variations, assessing scenarios and backtesting to determine historical performance of a strategy, monitoring of current positions and considering restructures or hedges. Collaboration about these ideas often involves typed up email summaries of the option structure with graphs attached. The current process is very manual, time consuming, and requires significant expertise and familiarity with complex tooling.

Visual Structuring combines the latest developments in mobile technology, cloud compute and machine learning to provide faster price discovery, detailed but intuitive scenario analysis, and seamless collaboration on trades and ideas.

Using natural language inputs, variations of a trade can be priced instantaneously using intuitive touch-screen interactions. For each of these variations, users can view graphically how their risks evolve over time and get additional context on the probabilities of outcomes or upcoming events. They can further backtest a structure with a swipe of a finger and quickly assess how it has performed in the past.

“Visual Structuring aims to create a new paradigm in options trade idea generation; a new language of derivatives trading,” said Chris Churchman, Head of Goldman Sachs Marquee. “Instead of spreadsheets, emails and chat, we wanted to build a mobile-first analytics and collaboration platform that revolutionizes the way that people think about options. We’re starting in FX but aiming to extend this across every asset class. Goldman Sachs is uniquely placed to offer that experience.”

“We have always been committed to equipping our clients with the best pre-trade analytics in the industry,” said Ashok Varadhan, Global Co-Head of the Global Markets Division at Goldman Sachs. “The Marquee Visual Structuring module does this by enabling our clients to explore and price potential payoffs by intuitively using their fingers on graphs. The ease of use and attractive aesthetics allows for enhanced comparative analytics aiding in trade construction. We are so excited to roll this out and watch it gain traction.”

“Amazing option tech analytics in the palm of your hand,” said Richard Benson, co-Chief Investment Officer at Millennium Global. “With Visual Structuring there is no longer a need to guesstimate or use rules of thumb when that trade idea or portfolio evolution idea strikes. For a portfolio manager it is equally useful at the desk, on the train or even on the sofa! A very powerful tool utilizing the best technology available to get an edge.”

Institutional clients can access the tool via the Goldman Sachs Marquee Trader Mobile App, provided they have a Goldman Sachs Marquee account.

For information on how to request access, visit https://marquee.gs.com/welcome/campaigns/visual-structuring.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global financial institution that delivers a broad range of financial services across investment banking, securities, investment management and consumer banking to a large and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments, and individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world.

Source – Goldman Sachs