Block trading venue and technology firm Liquidnet just upped the ante on its Virtual High Touch platform.

The firm just launched Discovery – the first integration from the OTAS acquisition and is the start of a new generation of trader intelligence tools designed to facilitate more value-added conversations with portfolio managers, elevating their desk’s ability to generate short-term alpha.

Virtual High Touch combines advanced data analytics, unique liquidity sourcing tools, advanced algorithms, and real-time decision support. The idea behind VHT is that technology – when delivered in a meaningful, insightful and actionable way – can make the difference in terms of capturing and delivering alpha.

Discovery is the culmination of seven years of research and development, leveraging AI and machine learning that draws in massive amounts of market data, distills it into actionable insight tailored to every order on a blotter that is synced with Liquidnet. Discovery will automatically alert members when there are events that might influence the liquidity or direction of that order. By integrating with Liquidnet’s VHT trading technology, it will also provide the liquidity sourcing and execution tools, best suited to take advantage of that information, with an audit trail of decisions made.

This integration means that Liquidnet can now deliver actionable insight directly without disrupting the workflow. Discovery allows Liquidnet members to track and manage risk factors on all Liquidnet synced orders throughout the trading day. The more orders synced with Liquidnet, the greater the chance of identifying outliers or market abnormalities that could impact execution.