Held in suspense: late futures orders blamed for Covid meltdown

Buy-side use of average pricing contributed to rash of failed trades and give-ups last March

Everyone was blaming everybody else. In March 2020, a massive spike in volumes led to chaos in the futures markets, with delays and trade breaks pitting banks and brokers against exchanges and clearers – and pretty much everyone against post-trade vendors – in claim and counterclaim. At the time, the only camp to largely escape attention was asset managers.

But in the industry’s ongoing inquiry into what happened, one aspect of buy-side behaviour is being pinpointed as the biggest source of