5 Mins to Managing Paper & Physical Trading Books' Settlement and Risks with MAF

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. LOGIN

Register for an account in https://portal.mafint.com/ and follow the instructions in the email (could be in your junk folder) to activate your account.

Please contact us at support@mafint.com for login details.

2. PORTFOLIO

From the navigation sidebar on the left, click “Portfolio”, followed by “View Portfolio”.

“View Portfolio” page provides an overview of the overall/individual performance of your books/portfolios. You can easily manage and organise your books/portfolios with the hierarchy tree structure.

Open

You are free to create and arrange the books/portfolios, and can easily monitor and manage them to fit your business needs. Referring to the screenshot above,

1. “Group” is the company level portfolio, and provides an overview of all the positions and P/L of all the portfolios categorised under it.

2. Under “Group”, there are 3 portfolios:

   1. “Paper Trade Portfolios” (Aggregate all paper trades): View overall portfolio performance of Trader 1 and Trader 2.

      1. Trader 1: View individual portfolio performance of Trader 1 (Strategy: Algo Trading, Speculation).

      2. Trader 2: View individual portfolio performance of Trader 2 (Strategy: Strategy 1).

   2. “Physical Trades” (Aggregate hedging book and all physical trades): View overall portfolio performance of hedging book and physical trades.

      1. Hedging Book: View portfolio performance of hedging book.

      2. Physical Trades Portfolios: View overall portfolio performance of all the deals (Deal 1, Deal 2, Deal 3).

         1. Deal 1: View individual portfolio performance of Deal 1.

         2. Deal 2: View individual portfolio performance of Deal 2.

         3. Deal 3: View individual portfolio performance of Deal 3.

   3. “JV” (Aggregate book between company and partner)

Please access https://mafint.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCUGX/pages/181567593 and https://mafint.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCUGX/pages/182091847 for a more detailed user guide.

3. PAPER TRADES

From the navigation sidebar on the left, click “Trade”, followed by “Paper Trade”.

You will be able to capture your paper trades (key manually or import from Broker’s daily CSV/Excel file directly) and add them into your portfolios for further analysis, monitoring and risk management purposes.

For China futures market, MAF system can connect to your CTP futures account securely to capture your trades on a daily basis. Most importantly, MAF system can also capture your trades automatically from any brokers' channels or exchanges directly.

Open

Referring to above screenshot, you will be able to allocate your paper trades into portfolios directly and view all trades here.

Please access https://mafint.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/MCUGX/pages/137920555 and for a more detailed user guide.

4. PHYSICAL TRADES

From the navigation sidebar on the left, click “Trade”, followed by “Physical Trade”.

You will be able to seamlessly integrate the front, middle and back office activities to manage the lifecycle of your physical commodities trading transactions, beginning from the contractual and execution phase to the risk monitoring and settlement phase.

In general, you need to identify the type of contracts when inputting your data:

1. SPOT:

a. Purchase/Sale contract with agreed total quantity eg 800 but it is split into 2 shipments with 2 quantities and different prices (500 and 300). You can create 1 trade as per normal and in the 'Benchmark' pricing page, let the quantity for the 1st pricing block be 500 and add the 2nd pricing block to include the quantity 300. You will need to make sure the quantity in the previous page matches exactly (800) to the total quantity in the pricing blocks.

b. Alternatively, if you have 2 trades with quantity 500 and 300 under the same contract, you can also key it as 2 separate trades and name it as “P1/P2” (purchase contract) or “S1/S2” (sale contract). You will be able to see the outstanding quantity that is not purchased/sold yet under DEALS tab.

The effects and outcome of 1a and 1b are the same, so it depends on which method is more suitable according to your requirements.

2. TERM:

a. Purchase/Sale contract with agreed total quantity eg 1500 and only 1000 has been purchased/sold, remaining 500 has not been purchased/sold and details are unknown yet. You will key this as a term contract to allow you to monitor the quantity that has been completed and the outstanding quantity that is not purchased/sold under TERM DETAILS tab. You will first need to key in the trade as per normal for the 1500 quantity, and key in the 500 later once you have the details.

1. Deal 1: Shows back-to-back physical trades without any position exposure risks. The profit (P/L) comes from the premium difference between purchase and sale trades.

2. Deal 2: Shows that the deal only has purchase trade (pricing has not been set yet). So there is a spread position exposure between benchmark/pricing index (LME Aluminium 3M) and mark-to-market (MTM) index (LME Aluminium Cash).

3. Deal 3: Shows that the deal only has purchase trade in which pricing has been set with final (actual) quantity. In this case, client is facing open position exposure from MTM index and will need to use paper trade to hedge the risks.

For more cases, please contact us at support@mafint.com.

Functions:

1. + New Trade: Create new physical trade.

2. Edit/View: Edit or view the details of your trades and pricing strategies (benchmark and MTM).

3. Add Deal Trade: Add additional trades within the same deal, to add to or close off your existing physical trades.

4. Hedge: Create a new paper trade to hedge your physical trade exposure.

5. Edit/View Trade Execution: Record and monitor the execution of your physical trades. For example, filling in “Actual Quantity” will automatically close the trade positions in the portfolio.

6. Reallocate Deal: Change the Deal No. of a trade into another a new or existing Deal No., and the MTM pricing will follow the reallocated Deal No.

7. Split Trade: Split the trade’s quantity into smaller quantities while keeping all details the same.

8. Duplicate Trade: Duplicate all details of a trade.

9. Generate Contract: Generate trade contract.

10. Stock In: Store and manage the stocks in your inventory.

Please access and for a more detailed user guide.

5. DASHBOARD

From the navigation sidebar on the left, click “Dashboard”.

“Dashboard” page is a platform that allows you to create a variety of quantitative models & reports and customise the contents according to your needs. Here are some examples:

1. Position Matrix: Displays open positions of selected book/portfolio. Click on “Settings” button to select your portfolio; the “Group” portfolio is selected in this example.

Details and net positions of all the trades in the portfolio are displayed, listed according to “SPOT” or “Contract Month/Year” (e.g. G2021 = Feb 2021). At a glance, you can view the outstanding net open positions/positions exposure of all the trades in the portfolio, allowing you to manage your positions and risk exposure efficiently.

Please access for a more detailed user guide.

2. Portfolio Grid: Displays multiple portfolios' P/L and Value-at-Risk (VaR) details. Click on “Settings” button to select your portfolio; the “Group”, “Physical Trades” and “Paper Trade Portfolios” portfolios are selected in this example.

Realised, unrealised and total P/L, and VaR details are displayed. At a glance, you can easily view and compare the overall financial positions and risk exposures of different portfolios.

Please access for a more detailed user guide.