Polygon Strategy Consulting & Research

Our Perspective

Financial markets are undergoing profound structural change. Increasing automation, fragmented liquidity, evolving regulation, and the rapid expansion of data-driven decision-making are reshaping how trading and asset management businesses operate.

In this environment, successful organisations combine deep market understanding with sophisticated technological capabilities. Strategy, quantitative models, and system architecture must evolve together.

Polygon Strategy helps firms navigate this convergence. We work with institutions seeking to design resilient trading architectures, strengthen their data and analytical capabilities, and align technology development with evolving market realities.

Areas of Expertise

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Trading Infrastructure

Modern trading and investment operations depend on interconnected ecosystems of pricing engines, execution systems, data platforms, and risk frameworks. Polygon advises on the design and evolution of these architectures, helping firms build scalable environments that support both innovation and operational stability.

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Market Structure Strategy

Financial markets continuously evolve as regulation, technology, and liquidity dynamics shift. Polygon provides strategic insight into topics such as electronic trading models, ETF ecosystems, cross-market interactions, and the structural forces shaping modern trading and investment environments.

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Quantitative & Data Systems

Reliable data and robust analytical frameworks are central to modern trading and portfolio management. Polygon helps organisations design architectures that support systematic decision-making, advanced pricing approaches, portfolio analytics, and integrated risk monitoring.

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Technology Strategy for Trading Organisations

Selecting and integrating the right technologies is critical for trading firms and asset managers alike. Polygon supports institutions in evaluating platforms, designing modular architectures, and developing technology strategies that remain flexible as markets evolve.

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Artificial Intelligence in Financial Markets

Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping how organisations analyse markets, monitor risks, and automate decision-making. Polygon advises on the practical integration of generative AI, machine learning, and advanced analytical techniques into trading, portfolio management, and research environments. This includes designing data pipelines, supporting model development and governance, and incorporating AI-driven insights into pricing, compliance monitoring, and trading workflows.

How We Work

Polygon combines strategic perspective with deep technical understanding of financial markets. Engagements typically span strategy and conceptual design, and in some cases practical implementation support.

Clarity of Architecture

Even complex systems should remain modular, understandable, and maintainable.

Alignment of Strategy and Technology

Trading strategies, portfolio processes, quantitative frameworks, and system design must evolve together.

Data as a Strategic Asset

Reliable and well-structured data foundations enable advanced analytics, systematic decision-making, and scalable operations.

Human Expertise Enhanced by Technology

Automation and analytical systems should augment human decision-making rather than replace it.

Scalable Design

Architectures should support long-term growth and adaptation without constant reinvention.

Leadership

Joachim Tigler Founder & Principal Consultant

Joachim Tigler brings more than two decades of experience in global financial markets, combining senior roles in investment banking with leadership positions in specialised trading firms, with a particular focus on electronic trading, quantitative systems, and market structure.

His career includes establishing Deutsche Bank's Fixed Income ETF issuance platform and its Fixed Income Derivatives Group covering a wide range of bond and index derivatives. He also designed fully automated market-making operations at ADG Securities and Mirae GHCO. Throughout his work he has focused on the intersection of trading strategy, quantitative systems, and technological innovation.

At Polygon Strategy he advises financial institutions on the design of modern trading and asset management architectures, market structure strategy, and the integration of advanced technological frameworks into investment and trading operations.

Case Studies

ETF Market-Making in Europe

Europe's ETF market illustrates the growing complexity of modern financial ecosystems. The landscape combines fragmented trading venues, diverse issuer structures, evolving regulatory frameworks, and a rapidly expanding electronic trading environment — further complicated by heterogeneous protocols and persistent data quality challenges. This complexity creates significant barriers to entry but also offers substantial opportunities for firms able to navigate it efficiently.

Successful ETF market-making requires sophisticated data architectures, integrated pricing and risk frameworks, rigorous process automation, and continuous investment in low-latency trading technology. It also depends on the ability to combine insights across markets, asset classes, and client flows. Only a small number of firms currently operate at this level.

Polygon Strategy has developed conceptual frameworks for ETF trading infrastructure that integrate data management, risk evaluation, and advanced pricing and quoting automation reflecting a wide range of market and risk factors — enabling trading organisations to capture insights across the entire trading lifecycle while maintaining scalability, adaptability, and operational clarity.

Bond Trading Automation

Large bond trading operations face increasing pressure to process vast numbers of instruments and requests for quotes across fragmented liquidity sources and rapidly changing market conditions. Manual pricing approaches struggle to scale across such environments.

Polygon Strategy contributed to the development of an intelligent and highly adaptive quoting framework for the bond trading operations of a major European bank, spanning government bonds, credit products, and related derivatives. The system integrates multiple analytical perspectives on pricing and risk — including market data, inventory dynamics, funding considerations, and client behaviour — into a unified decision framework.

By combining advanced data integration, quantitative modelling, and modular system architecture, the platform enables highly automated pricing and quoting processes while maintaining strong control over risk and execution quality. The resulting architecture supports scalable trading operations across large and diverse bond universes while allowing continuous adaptation to evolving market conditions.