The iPad Market Risk project, born out of LabInnovation, envisions the iPad as the seventh monitor on a trader’s desk. In today’s markets, market risk management is playing a vital role on the trading desk. Both the buy and sell-sides are striving to achieve a real-time view of their exposure to market risk across portfolios to keep nimble in the face of market volatility.
Lab49′s user experience (UX) practice, through various discovery engagements, has identified one of the concerns traders and fund managers have is being disconnected from their risk exposure when away from the desk. The iPad Market Risk application is designed to allow traders to keep a view of their book while away in meetings, lunch, etc., so that they are no longer “chained to the desk”.
The iPad Market Risk application clearly displays aggregated market risk across multiple regions and enables traders to aggregate data however they see fit. A secure streaming data connection bridges the gap to the backend, which is centered around a real-time in memory OLAP cube. This allows traders to easily slice and dice their data by region, desk, book, product, currency, trader, etc. The hands-on display provides a completely different kind of use experience. Fund managers literally have the trade blotter and real-time P&L at their fingertips. Traders can manually manipulate yield curves and run simulations against a variety of scenarios.
Mobile applications such as these have the potential to play a key role on and off the trading desk by allowing fund managers and traders alike to confidently and securely monitor risk exposure, and if necessary, make adjustments to neutralize risk no matter where they are.