Here are some tips and tricks and things to look for when setting up and trading cross border pairs. Or any type of Pairs for that matter.

Model Setup Panel

Order Parameters Tab

Account and Destination: Make sure these correspond to the correct destination and account for the stock
Fraction: Controls what fraction a price is rounded to (always away from the market). In this case, SHP.L trades in GBP, which trade in whole numbers. ABBV is set to trade in pennies
Quote Symbol: If there is no quote for the model, check the quote symbol. This is the symbol Pairs uses to ask the market data service for quote information.
Currency: This is the currency each stock trades in. Always double check this setting. The system tries to set it automatically for you, but it can get it wrong.

Bid/Ask Strategy Panel

This panel controls how initiating orders are created.

Target Spread: Amount to be added or subtracted from the converted price of symbol 2 when setting the target price for symbol 1. Essentially the difference between the 2 stocks needed before trading.
Total Qty: The total quantity of the 2 stocks to be traded.
Max Slice Qty: Share per slice. The max quantity of orders for symbol 1.
Max Tgt-Ask Sprd: Distance the target price of symbol 1 must be from the current market before initiating orders are entered.
Don’t bid through MKT: If active, initiating orders will not bid through the offer of symbol 1.
Override Size Ratio: Turn this on if the share quantity should trade at a different ratio than the price.

Pairs pricing in the Pairs App

Pairs displays value that provide information on the pricing of the model, how close it may be to trading, and whether the model is setup correctly. These values can all be seen in the grid of the main htX Pairs application. There are many columns in the application, so we will only discuss the columns relevant to pricing a model that is being actively traded.

Description of columns, beginning with BidSpread, the column after PAIR.

BidSpread-1/AskSpread-1: Target Spread set by the trader for the model in the Bid Strategy and Ask Strategy panels.
OFF_Sprd: The “Bid” of the Pair. If you wanted to sell this pair, you would set the AskSpread to this value.
ON_Sprd: The “Offer” of the Pair. If you wanted to buy this pair, you would set the BidSpread to this value.
BidTGTMkt-1/AskTGTMkt-1: Difference between the target price the model wants to trade and the actual price of symbol 1. In the above image, the bid model is 1 pence away from trading. The ask model is 34 pence away.
BidTGT-1/AskTGT-1: The target prices of the Pair. These are the target prices calculated from the quote of symbol 2 after FX rate, Ratio and Cash are applied. Another way to look at it is, it is the price of symbol2 in terms of symbol1. The initiating order will be entered at this price. **IMPORTANT** Check this value before enabling the model. If it is far away from the current market of symbol 1, then there is an issue with the model setup or spread entered.
Bid-1/Ask-1: Current market of Symbol1
Last_Sprd: Last price of the pair. This based on the last sale prices of symbol 1 and symbol 2.
Net_Chnge: Net change of the pair for the day. Based upon the last sale and previous day’s close of symbol 1 and symbol 2. For cross border, the FX rate applied is the rate at startup so it’s not 100% accurate. (technically, would need to use previous day’s close of the FX rate to get the almost accurate previous day’s close for the pair.)