Imported from previous forum
[ original email was from Michael Farthing - mick.farthing@bigfoot.com ]
Hi,
Could someone please explain to me why there is no Currency field within the Quote message.
I don’t understand why there is a Currency field (as well as SettlCurrency) within the New Order and Execution Report messages, but not within the Quote.
Thanks.
> Hi,
>
> Could someone please explain to me why there is no Currency field within the Quote message.
>
> I don’t understand why there is a Currency field (as well as SettlCurrency) within the New Order and Execution Report messages, but not within the Quote.
>
> Thanks.
>
Nick,
Here’s the short answer:
FIX was developed as a US-centric beast to satisfy the needs of US institutions and brokers doing listed equity business in the USA. At the time, and I stand to be corrected on this, there were no securities for listed trading that were traded in currencies other than USD.
Of course in the rest of the world this has not always been the case. For many years there were US equities such as IBM and Ford trading in Canada, which were quoted in both Canadian and US dollar terms, or shares of IBM traded (not actively) on exchanges throughout the world in currencies other than USD.
Nor is it/will it be the case when a single exchange entity (OM, or others) consolidate trading of shares like Shell where in the UK they will be quoted in Sterling and on the continent they will be quoted in Euros. The interesting thing about a situation such as this is that there may be not a ‘dominant’ trading currency - it could be 45%/55% split one day favoring one currency and the opposite the next day.
In short, it will become dangerous in the near future as exchanges merge cross-border to assume that a single exchange only quotes securities in a single currency. That said, the vast majority of securities are currently quoted only in the presumed ‘native’ currency of the exchange. That leaves all the fun stuff - exception handling - up to us.
I agree with you that the Quote should also specify currency.
Alan Flancman
flancman@monetarydynamics.com
We will add it to the Quote message and any other applicable ones in the next version of the spec.
This was an oversight vs. a USD-centric plot to rule the world.
> Hi,
>
> Could someone please explain to me why there is no Currency field within the Quote message.
>
> I don’t understand why there is a Currency field (as well as SettlCurrency) within the New Order and Execution Report messages, but not within the Quote.
>
> Thanks.
>
Touché.