The primary use of the Internet for the derivatives industry so far seems to be in the distribution of low-cost analytics. Coincident with the unveiling of Integral Development Corp.'s RiskNet service this month (see Derivatives Strategy, May 1996) comes yet another new offering: Derivex at http://www.derivex.com, which for a mere $100 a month offers real-time pricing information on short-term interest rate swaps in all the major currencies. Users can also find prices of FRAs (including broken-dated) and medium-term interest rate swaps in the U.S. dollar market. There are a variety of chart styles, including Candlestick, Point & Figure and Bar. For an additional $100 a month Derivex offers computer-generated price indications based on fractal, spectral and phase distribution analysis in U.S. dollar products.

Kalahari Software's Trio is another Internet-based offer you may not be able to refuse. A 30-day free trial is available at http://www.investorgate.com/trio/trio.htm. Trio performs arbitrage calculations on an array of prices between deposit forward FX and between FRAs and forward FX and spits out a ranked list of "Best Arb" recommendations. Prices can be instantly and selectively switched between real-time market feed, local network or privately entered rates. British-based Kalahari Software, founded in 1987, has 272 users of its two calculator products (the other handles FRAs and interest rate swaps) at 58 sites worldwide, only two of these in the U.S.

A six-month amnesty to pirates of FENICS software by Astrogamma (see Derivatives Strategy, April 1996) has yielded some surprising results. The program generated a dozen new customers and an additional half million dollars in revenues and from penalties imposed on repentant pirates. Astrogamma, whose popular package for the foreign currency options market has an estimated 90 percent world market share, found that some illegal users of its product were very big cheese indeed. They include "three of the world's largest banks involved in the trading of derivatives instruments," though the company declines to name names. Says Astrogamma's CEO Mark Simon, "It is very pleasing-and perhaps instructive to others in the copyright business-to know that an amnesty has produced such excellent results."

The battle of the platforms in derivatives software witnessed a small win for Microsoft last May, when Midas-Kapiti launched Market Watch DBA, which the company claims is the first trading solution running entirely on PCs under the Microsoft Windows NT operating system. This product uses Windows NT across the entire dealing room infrastructure, covering both feed-handling and distribution on server, as well as desktop display and applications. For more information contact Paul North at (212) 898-9500.

The CBOE has just released its two-diskette Guide for Institutional Investors. Aside from predictable ingredients on exchange rules and regs, this database contains the latest on state regulation of derivatives use by life insurance companies and options use by ERISA and public employee retirement systems. Also included: a "Guide to Derivatives Software," first published last year in Derivatives Strategy. For a free copy, call (800) OPTIONS ext. 4.

Last month Leading Market Technologies released BasketTrader, designed for quick pricing of complex baskets of financial products. The product promises real-time graphic feedback on the performance of those instruments, including: price histories of all ingredients; user-selected weightings such as market capitalization; a correlation matrix for all ingredients; volatility and sensitivity to various factors; up-to-the-second prices and ROIs of the basket.

Introductory pricing for a single copy is $9,000. It runs on UNIX, Windows and Windows NT. For more information contact Siobhan Gallagher at (617)494-4747 ext. 235 or http://www.lmt-expo.com.