Currently the automated platform that I use is OpenQuant www.smartquant.com, for 39.99 / month, and it's awesome probably the best ATS I've used, you can almost do anything in it(except run multiple strategies, but that's coming later), and the support is exceptional. They have an upgrade. The platform is called www.quanthouse.com for $3000 to $5000 per month. What really do institutional platforms offer that retail platforms don't, other than offering you snippy customer service... I asked quant house a simple question. Here was the reply... "Hi I'd love to answer your question, but we do not answer questions from people with hotmail addresses perhaps you'd like to get a email address from an instituation and then come back and contact us" --> (not saying anything, but the lady who sent that was from France)
Hi, OpenQuant is just a small example of trading applications that can be developed with QuantHouse platform in a short time. Other applications can be black boxes, customized trading front-ends, data acquisition and analysis tools, etc. etc. that can be deployed at trading and quant desks. Taking into account development time and cost reduction, I think it's a valuable tool for institutions that don't want to spend millions re-inventing the wheel. Moreover, you are not 100% correct saying "they have" in your post. QuantHouse platform has been developed by QuantHouse separately from SmartQuant for more than a year, it was re-factored to meet institutional requirements and many new features have been added. Regards, Anton