The TRADE and Global Custodian publications boast a combined 50 year-history of bringing insight to the front- and back-office respectively, with the majority of their lifetimes spent in the same stable. Nowadays they make up the two brands of independently-owned Tungsten Publishing. Rarely, however, do their subject matters cross over, until now. 
While the front-office may seem like an unlikely area of common ground given Global Custodian’s remit, outsourced trading has appeared on both brands’ radars in recent years as the service becomes increasingly popular among institutional investors.
The service provider landscape is made up of independent firms, prime brokers and custodians – encompassing both audiences – while the decision-making process at the client-end engages both the C-suite (from which much of Global Custodian’s readership is drawn) and the heads of trading desks (who religiously read The TRADE).
For The TRADE, which has operated under the mantra of “working for the buy-side” for many years, outsourced trading has been a sensitive area to cover over the years as it was viewed as a hostile move to replace the trading desk.
To stay true to its origins, the publication has sought to cover the topic in a fair and unbiased way by giving both the buy-side and service providers a voice on the matter.
However, as this issue shows, outsourced trading – through the rise of co-sourcing or supplemental trading – has tempered the binary notion of an all-or-nothing decision. In our inaugural survey, we discovered that more users co-source than fully outsource.
Granted, some firms still oppose the use of an outsourced trading desk, but the choice is increasingly working its way up the ladder of assets under management to tempt larger firms with each passing year.
The features in this issue delve into both the client trends in the industry (page 6) and the rapidly evolving service provider landscape (page 16).
As for the survey, we are incredibly proud of both the participation and the depth of analysis. The project began at the backend of 2022 and over nine months we have worked alongside Ergo Consultancy to create a detailed questionnaire to gather the only set of views from those who outsource their trading on both the service of their providers and trends in the wider industry.
Together with the features and thought leadership, we believe this issue delivers the most comprehensive view of the outsourced trading world to-date, and we are already excited to deliver an updated version this time next year.
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