# How it works.



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Excellent topics and facts for ag people.

Regards, Mike

http://www.agriculture.com/successful-farming/summer-2013-dig-into-how-it-wks_119-ar32406


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Good to hear someone else likes the IVT as much as I....


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

The article on E-trading is close but no cigar.

I was the developer of the original order management system for commodities trading. The system, Order Express, was a joint development effort between myself and Barry Lind of Lind-Waldock and was owned by a company called B-R Technology, Inc. (B-R = Barry and Ralph).

Order Express was the first system to integrate order entry, order routing, trade reporting, account management, risk management, quotes, trade reporting, market news and many other features, all in one system.

Development began in Aug., 1983 and the system went live in 1984. It was a continually evolving system and ultimately ended up being about 500,000 lines of code.

In the summer of 1987, I developed a risk management module that check all accounts marked to the market and determined what customer accounts would be at risk if a market moved and by how much. This functionality was turned on about 6 weeks before the market crash of October, 1987. It worked so well that Lind-Waldock ended up with only one account deficit $4,000. Other firms took big hits, e.g., First Options got nailed for $90 million.

In the early 90's development went towards direct customer access where customers where able to enter orders, get fills, check quotes, etc, all online.

In August, 1995, I bought Barry's interest in B-R Technology. Lind-Waldock received a license to pursue independent development paths.

In the late 90's, WEB interfaces where developed to allow all the trading functionality over the Internet.

In 1999, I sold my interests to a British software firm and signed on for a two year "technology transfer" agreement. Interfacing technology was developed to allow access to all major futures exchanges throughout the world. Interfacing technology was also developed to allow other commodities firms have their own front-end software and to do private branding.

Order Express is still in use at least a dozen commodities firms including the market branches of ADM and Cargill. It has gone through at least 4 portings to other platforms. But for the most part, it has been allowed to stagnate because of competitive pressures and technology divergences.

I spent 17 years developing, marketing, nursing, baby sitting and fighting for the system. On three separate occasions, people tried to steal ownership of the software which lead to big legal battles. Fortunately, I prevailed.

The CME Group developed a system called Globex starting in the early 90's which had only order matching.

It was a blast developing that system, watching it grow and evolve. It was certainly challenging at times.

Ralph


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